Hello! About a month ago, I lost part of an old filling. This was my third damaged tooth; I've had two other spots where old fillings and new decay have caused loss of tooth/fillings. I don't have dental insurance and I'm unemployed, but I managed to find a free dental clinic. The advanced dental student there told me that the new decay in my tooth was very deep. He put in medication to try to save the tooth, did the filling, but warned me that I may still need to have a root canal or to have the tooth extracted. It didn't seem like the new filling made my general tooth pain any worse (I have a few other spots where I need fillings) but I did start to experience referred pain in other parts of my mouth reminiscent of what I experienced before two root canals several years ago). During the procedure for this most recent filling, my jaws began to lock up and I had immense difficulty with keeping them open for the last 10 minutes for the procedure, nevermind keeping them open wide enough for the dentist. The resultant jaw pain took several days to fade.

Fast forward to the last week - I've been experiencing a severe headache with sinus pain off and on for about a week. I'd been wondering if I should just go back to the free clinic and see about getting the tooth removed. But yesterday my entire face exploded into pain. The side of my face opposite from where I had the recent filling is on fire with stabbing pains in my nose and sinus area, along my jaw and into my ear. In general, it feels a lot like sinus infection/headaches I had a few years ago. But I'm in so much pain I can hardly see straight.

Related to my tooth problems or not? I guess what I really need is to figure out what I should ask when I visit the free clinic. I will need to visit a "regular" free clinic before gaining access to the dental clinic so I could get a referral to a different type of care than dental.