Oh! Also one last question that I have been really puzzled about...How did the gutta percha fragments get in the bone in the first place? The dentist said they migrate over time in certain cases but I never had time to ask how or why. The RCT was awfully done. It was done by a family member when I was 15 and had no say in the matter. He was a sloppy general dentist but free so that is where my family took me. It was not even needed, he only did it because I had pain after a deep filling. There was no infection and the tooth was vital. I am still angry about that. I found out during all of this that he also fractured a dental file in my tooth but never told me. It was picked up on xray 8 months ago when I kept having pain and they did multiple xrays of the tooth. It never showed any signs of infection which was commented on as unusual being it has a dental instrument in it. But you can see why I elected to get it removed....I always thought that when it was removed the dentist would see a granuloma or a sign of long term infection but he said he saw nothing to indicate the infection, just many shards of gutta percha very deep in the socket/bone.

That is why I went to a holistic dentist instead of an oral surgeon, because I imagine many oral surgeons would just have popped the tooth out and left the gutta percha shards! I am very glad they are gone but I guess I want to know how they got there in the first place. Is it common with old RCT over time and they all have them or was it yet another part of the bad RCT job done in the first place?