PJ,

I'm glad you are pursuing some action to deal with your tooth problem. However, please do not misunderstand our reassurance to mean this problem can wait. Right now one of the biggest concerns with your dental situation is time because you have already gone several years with infection in this area of your mouth including from your (extracted) 2nd premolar. The longer these teeth are present, the more complicated the entire process and it would be ideal to keep this process as simple as possible. I also was not exaggerating when I wrote about the complications that can occur from long standing oral infections. My intention is not to alarm you, but rather to inform you while not going into any of the explicit details because there is no way to gauge the extent of your dental problem based on one x-ray and some back and forth online discussion.

As I'm sure you are aware, there are a lot of people who read these posts who may (or may not) be in a similar situation. So when I reply to a post, I feel like I am replying to all of the readers as I have no idea who may be reading this or for what reason.

May I ask..... is there a reason why you are not consulting with an oral surgeon on your own? I still get the feeling that you are unsure of the depth of your dental problem and perhaps that is because your previous dentist, as stated by you, hadn't diagnosed any problems with these molars. I may be way off with that feeling, but either way I truly hope that you will get in to see the OS very soon.

And yes, please do share the events along this journey. We do care how you are doing and it may also be helpful to someone else in a similar situation.

Bryanna



TE=pjsavvy;838894]Thanks to all for the responses.

I could go over the history of this tooth and the area, but it's water under the bridge and the only important thing now is getting things sorted. I wouldn't say I deliberately neglected the area but I did end up ignoring some things because my previous dentist insisted it was all about 2nd premolar roots that would settle down! It is now certain this is not the case.

Tician - thanks for the reassurance. It just so happens that members of my family work at our local hospital and know the oral surgeons there. It looks like one of them is happy to give his email address and analyse the x-ray as a favour. That will be a relief as I may have to wait a bit for my consultation and surgery. I've also spoken to someone who works within the operating theaters and from my symptoms he insisted that it sounds purely infection based and is a common reason for referral to the oral surgeons.

I don't know if anyone's really interested in the outcome of this but if you want me to advise what the surgeon says i'll let you know. I'm hoping to get an email address on Monday but of course he might take a few days to respond.

Bryanna - I do appreciate the very real complications that you warn of. Trust me though, i'm not ducking out of the treatment and will get this sorted. I kind of expect a course of antibiotics along with the surgery but was a little shaken at the prospect of a stubborn bone infection which they can't entirely remove. That sounded like it would eventually eat your face off with the surgeons being helpless, but I don't really know what i'm talking about so am easily lead to exaggerate the things that could go wrong. When you told Tician that my case was "all too familiar" though, this actually helped as I felt that I was the only person with this going on.

I just hope that the treatment is relatively simple, e.g a careful extraction under local anaesthesia. That wouldn't bother me whereas a plan to go gung ho on half my face will be quite daunting.[/QUOTE]