Originally Posted by Bryanna

Hi kgizmo,

Thank you offering the history of the wisdom tooth and describing the pain with the root canaled tooth.

First regarding the wisdom tooth....
Oral infections do not often have symptoms that correlate with the severity of the infection. So basically, you had a long term infection associated with the wisdom tooth that was so severe it caused some of the jaw bone to deteriorate. Although this bone loss may have made the extraction a bit "easier", it only did so because the tooth was now not covered by the bone that it should have been and that area of tooth was sitting in mushy infected tissue. All of the antibiotics that you took prior to the extraction had only served to temporarily lessen the virulence and inflammation of the infection. In actuality the infection was still brewing and spreading. So hopefully the oral surgeon scraped the extraction site and the bone in that area clean after she removed the tooth.

Regarding the root canaled molar... All root canaled teeth harbor infectious bacteria inside of the tiny canals called dentin tubules. There is no access to these canals with any type of instrument, laser, disinfectants or medications. So every root canaled tooth is chronically infected to some degree. The rc procedure is not done to cure the infection, it is done to retain an unhealthy tooth for an uncertain amount of time. Irrelevant of symptoms with this tooth, the infection is still present. Frequently the infection does not show on a dental xray until it has proliferated beyond the dentin tubules and gone further into the tooth and or the jaw bone.

With that said, because of the intricate connection between the adjacent teeth in any quadrant, the infection in the wisdom tooth site has likely caused further inflammation in the adjacent rc molar and the symptoms of the chronic infection in this tooth is now becoming evident. If the wisdom tooth site is no longer infected and you avoid using this rc tooth, the symptoms may (or may not) calm down for awhile but that does not mean the tooth became suddenly healthy. It just means that the dominant inflammation (infected wisdom tooth) has lessened with the extraction. However the bacteria from this rc tooth will continue to progress and eventually it will look for a place to drain into.

In your case, I doubt that your symptoms with the rc tooth are strongly related to ligament bruising. It more likely to be what I have explained above.

The oral surgeon has an xray of this rc molar.... it would a good idea to take a new one to compare it. Although nothing different may show unless the bacteria has spread from the dentin tubules.

The only way to cure an infected tooth is to have it extracted. I know that sounds awful but the anatomy of our teeth does not allow for anything to get into those tiny canals to remove the necrotic nerve tissue.

Bryanna