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Old 02-09-2015, 04:55 PM
kyasick kyasick is offline
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8 yr Member
kyasick kyasick is offline
Newly Joined
 
Join Date: Feb 2015
Posts: 1
8 yr Member
Default Help! :)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bryanna View Post
Chemar,
I know this is not what anyone wants to hear. Believe me, I address this very issue every day with people and I see the disappointment and fear in their expressions.

Literally, 9 out of 10 people can relate to your story. Dentists are taught to convince the patient that teeth should be "saved" irrelevant of how infected or broken down they may be. However, that word "save" simply means "retain". Root canals, apicoectomies, amputated roots do nothing to "cure" an infected tooth. Teeth start out as live body parts and once the nerve becomes infected, it rapidly spreads to other parts of the tooth called the dentin tubules which are also filled with nerve material. These tubules are microscopic, therefore, they cannot be cleaned out and antibiotics cannot kill the various strains of bacteria that develop because there is no way to culture it to know what's growing in there. The nerve material inside the tubules becomes necrotic and remains infectious. In addition to that, our teeth get their nutrition from the blood supply that circulates through the nerves, just like it does in every other part of our body. Once the nerves are severed, as they are when they are removed from the inside of the roots, the circulation stops. It is very common for people to end up with 2, 3, 4 root canaled teeth in a row as the infection has spread through the bone. Depending on the persons immune system, the infection can spread rapidly or take months to years before it shows up radiographically.

Chemar, never hesitate to question your dentist about his experience extracting teeth near or in the sinus cavity. He may be the nicest guy in the world.............. but he needs to know how to deal with a sinus perforation irrelevant of how small or large it may be. Most general dentists DO NOT know how to repair a sinus perf, nor do they have the material to repair it. It takes special training and experience to know what to do. Oral surgeons see sinus perfs all of the time, so they are ready and able to repair it.

I have seen so many "mistakes" because the patient didn't question the dentist and because the dentist didn't want to offer to refer them out for fear of losing the patient for restorative work. Please make sure you ask what his experience is with sinus perforations and how he would handle it.

I know this is scary........ I realy do. But in the right hands, you will be fine!!

Bryanna
Bryanna,

I apologize for replying to a very old post of yours, but I desperately need some advise and very much hope to hear back from you. You seem to really know what you're talking about and it's a relief that you're upfront and honest with your knowledge and information. After seeing 5 different doctors, 3 different dentists, and 3 different endodontists who were less than truthful with me and acted like I was crazy wanting detailed information about my own body... you are exactly what I need.

Let me start at the beginning - I'll try to make this as short as possible, but I also want to make sure I give you all of the information.

For a good number of years now I've had an on again/off again slight problem with an upper left tooth, #14 I believe. It felt like a small indent or decay along the upper part of the tooth, at the gum line and every now and then it would get sensitive with sweets or whatnot. It never caused me much trouble or discomfort, and when I had the dentist look at it she couldn't even see anything so I had just let it go.

So, in late Nov/early Dec. of 2013 I started to have a very slight pain in a very specific area of my head any time I would eat or drink something sweet. I decided it was time to take care of this problem tooth, because this time it seemed like a permanent on-again phase. I made a dentist appointment with a new dentist (I had moved to a different state in between dentist visits), and saw the new dentist in Jan. of 2014.

At the dentist, x-rays were taken and showed a large and badly done filling in that particular tooth from the previous dentist. The new dentist suggested getting the filling removed and having a crown on that tooth. This new dentist again, said that she never saw any indent or decay that I was talking about. Mind you, I could always feel it with my fingernail - it was like a small cliff and I could stick my fingernail in it slightly under the gum. So, she gave me the crown, and after a few weeks the tooth was incredibly sensitive to the bite and touch and was not improving. She suggested I get a root canal in this tooth #14 and referred me to a nearby endodontist.

At the same time I was given the crown, she had talked me into getting metal fillings replaced with white fillings and there had been one in the tooth right behind the problem tooth (#15?) that had been replaced. She had mentioned that the cavity in that tooth had been very deep and she put some medicine in it but I might ultimately need a root canal in that tooth as well. I had never had any problems with that particular tooth previously.

So, in early Feb. of last year I had my root canal on #14. I was ready for the problems with this tooth to be over and done. Little did I know, they were just beginning.
After the root canal, the pain in my head that was associated with eating sweets and sweet drinks very much worsened for the few days following. I was thinking that this is it, the problem is over and the pain I'm feeling is just because the tooth had a traumatic experience and its healing. It's finally going to be over. I was popping the procedural antibiotics and steroids, and counting down the days until I would be pain free.

The head pains hung around and were worse now than they were before I even went to the dentist in the first place. And now they had friends... I had strange sensations and unpleasant feelings in the left side of my nose and my left ear. After several trips back to the dentist and the endodontist, complaining about this discomfort and insisting that there is definitely something wrong - I was told that it can't possibly be anything to do with the tooth, and to go see an ENT and wait it out and see what happens. The endodontist made a follow up appointment with me for 2 1/2 months later to see how the discomfort has come along. No one had any answers for me. X-rays were all normal, the tests were all normal... nobody knew what was going on.

In the meantime, I had wanted to go and see my GP and get an opinion. Over several visits - I had my ears and nose looked at, I had a nasal xray done, was given nasal spray and another round of antibiotics and steroids to eliminate any possible returning infection. The head pains had been getting worse lately, and for a few days in a row they were so bad that I was in tears most of my waking hours and went back to the doctor and decided to get an MRI to rule out anything more serious.

The MRI came back normal, there was nothing wrong. The only thing they mentioned was that I had a very small nasal cyst on the left side and that it wasn't anything to worry about and it would probably go away on it's own. The strange thing is - after I had the MRI, I didn't have a pain in my head for about 5 days straight before it started to slowly come back again.

So at my follow up appointment at the endodontist months later, there had been little change. The endodontist that performed my root canal was very unwilling to listen to me and would just tell me that there is no problem and acted like I was crazy, so I decided to make a meeting with his partner in practice. I went over everything with the partner and was adamant about a problem, and all he did was argue with me and call me crazy as well. I was starting to think I really was crazy. I got a second opinion from another dentist and she wasn't much help at all. Everyone just kept telling me to wait it out, or get a massage, or go on a soft food diet. I knew in my gut that this was a bigger problem than to be solved by just going on a soft food diet for a few weeks. I am an extremely patient person, and had hope that it would all eventually just maybe go away on its own.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen. After a lot of research I found another endodontist that I wanted to go see. He came very highly recommended and I was confident that he was the right person to fix me, and over an hours drive away. After telling him my story and looking at my xrays, 3rd endodontist was able to see that there was a 4th root in my tooth that was missed. And if there is some sort of swelling or infection in the tooth, that could definitely cause nasal/aural discomfort like I had been having. Hooray! Was I finally about to have some peace?!?! I wasn't able to have the root canal that day, but I went back to have the procedure done a week or so later and could not wait.

So, the day finally comes and I have the 2nd root canal done on my tooth #14. All goes well and I'm done and sent home but need to use the restroom before I leave the office because I know I will have a long drive home. I'm in the restroom and as I bend over to pull my pants down, I get a very strange smell in my nose right before this thin brownish liquid starts pouring out of my nostril. It finally stops, a few tissues later and I went back into the office to ask about it. He told me that the first guy who did my root canal in that tooth must have gone too far inside and punctured the tip of the root and when he cleaned it out to do his root canal, all the fluid leaked through and just sat in there until I bent over to let it out. He said not to worry about it, that it shouldn't cause any problems and that was it.

So, I've been thinking that maybe this small "cyst" that was seen in my MRI was actually the tip of the root coming through my nasal cavity??

More time passed and there was definitely an improvement on my situation, but something still wasn't right. After some more waiting, I made another appointment with the last endodontist to ask about the #15 tooth behind the first problem tooth. I had remembered what the dentist said about there being a deep cavity, so I wanted to have him take a look at it.

The xrays didn't show much, but he did see a little bit of a shadow underneath the new filling and wanted to do some investigation. He removed the filling and was shocked to see that when the metal filling had been taken out by the dentist to be refilled with a white filling, that she had drilled into the tip of one of my nerves and it had been hemorrhaged and traumatized for months.

So I got a root canal on that tooth #15 hoping to solve the problem. That was this past November 2014, and something is still not right. I still get the head pains, and strange uncomfortable sensations in my left nose and ear, and it feels almost like there's something constantly stuck in my teeth back there or something. It's a very tight feeling, and for the past couple of months it has been affecting my neck as well. The left side of my neck has been stiff and tight and always aching, and if I massage the tendon there very hard it's like I can feel relief in my teeth. It's the strangest thing. I also occasionally have a metallic or medicinal taste in my mouth.

For the past few days the head pains have been non-stop. I need to take over the counter pain medication like Advil or Tylenol nearly every single day, and I am not at all quick to take medication. I never even like to take cold medicine. But lately its been a necessity to get through the day and try and feel normal again. I fear that I am doing horrible damage to my insides with all the pain medication I've taken over these months and months, and I just want this horrible nightmare to be over. My head has not felt normal since all of this started over a YEAR ago.

I hope I haven't forgotten to add anything, I believe all of the information is there for you. I can not wait to hear back from you about all of this and see what you say. I would like to just get both of the teeth extracted and hopefully that will make the problem go away. I'm actually 100% confident that will make the problem go away, but then that leaves an added problem of missing two vital teeth and what to do to fill that space. But my priority is getting rid of the problem first and then working on what to do next. What are your thoughts on dental implants?

Also, I know you're on the East Coast but if you would be able to give me a referral of a great dentist in the Los Angeles area that you know that would be fantastic.

Again, sorry for such a long post but I wanted to make sure you had all of the information and I will be forever grateful to you for your wise words in response. Reading all of your posts on here makes me want YOU as my dentist!

Thanks so much for your time and I hope to hear back from you soon.
Katie
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