Hi Bryana,

I'm still struggling with this dental area so I thought I'd bug you again. It's now three weeks since my extraction of the 7th tooth on the upper right quadrant. That area is healing beautifully and seems to be fine at the point of extraction. Xrays show no sign of infection in the sinus or abcess around other teeth.

The problem is that I'm still have some throbbing in the area that moves a little into the sinus cavity on some days and into full headaches on others. I have been back to see my oral surgeon a number of times as well as an endodontist to check the teeth next door. They've done bite tests, cold tests, lots of tapping and although there doesn't seem to be sharp pain in any of the teeth, there is this persistent throb. I'm on 300mg of Clindamycin, four times a day and am almost done 2 weeks of that. The oral surgeon is hesitant to remove any more teeth because he can't definitively find a problem with any of them (the throb is general to the area). I agree with him on that and respect his decision not to pull until he's sure but I'm frustrated because it will seem to get better for 2 or 3 days and then will come back and I'm still needing to take Aleve to dull the throb.

I guess I'm wondering more about things like jaw infection now. The oral surgeon suggested that a jaw infection would produce swelling and pus (which I don't have). Can it be more silent than that? What sort of definitive test might help me out here (bone scan?).

Any help is always much appreciated....

Carly