Hi KrisKris,

Based on the title of your post I assume that the painful tooth on the left side is root canaled. If so, then the tooth has been harboring infected nerve tissue inside of the microscopic canals as all root canaled teeth do. Antibiotics do not have any affect on that bacteria for several reasons but the easiest to understand is that the micro organisms of bacteria have multiplied into different species and are unaffected by the medication. The tooth could also be fractured which is common for root canaled teeth.

Many times an infected tooth, root canaled or not, has little to no symptoms of having a problem until the problem has been stirred up or has become more widespread. Using this tooth to chew on has stimulated the infection and inflammation that has been residing inside of the tooth since it was root canaled. If you were to stop chewing on this tooth or if your dentist was to take this tooth out of occlusion so you were not hitting it when chewing, the pain may temporarily subside but the health status of the tooth would not change for the better. Unfortunately, once a tooth has been root canaled there are no means of making that tooth vital or healthy again. The only means of eradicating the infection is to remove the source of the infection which is the tooth. This may seem extreme to you but unfortunately there are no dental procedures that can cure an infected root canaled tooth. Replacement of root canaled teeth can be a bit risky once the infection has spread to the jaw bone. So without question it is ideal to have an infected tooth removed before that happens.

I'm sorry to deliver this news to you. I do hope it was helpful and of course only you can decide what you feel is in your best interest. Discuss this tooth with your dentist and if you are concerned about the long term ill affects of keeping this tooth, make sure that he is aware of that.

Bryanna






I recently had to have my wisdom tooth extracted and two crowns placed on my lower right teeth. This caused me to use the left side of my mouth for chewing. I have an old crown on my left side and after two weeks of chewing on it, I'm now feeling pain when I bite down. The old crown is 7 years old.

My new crowns have not been made permanent yet. I have the permanent crowns in but they are being held on with temporary adhesive while I try out the fit. I have an appointment with my dentist for Monday afternoon but I am worried and wanted to seek input.

I found this forum by searching the web. Most of the web results point to fracture in the tooth or an infection. I just had a round of antibiotics from the extraction though so I don't think it's an infection. I hope it's not a fractured though as we are taking the kids to Disneyland for the first time in a couple of weeks and I'm fearful of being in pain while there. What do you think it might be?

Thank you in advance for your help.[/QUOTE]