Hi Becdedo,
Please don't apologize for a lengthy post.... have you seen some of mine? LOL!
Your words....are typically heard in every dental office, every single day....
<<<<I have a tooth (I believe its #13) that had a root canal 10 years ago and never really got better. The dentist who did the work told me at 6 months that pain that long wasn't unusual and everything was fine.>>>>
Your tooth is obviously infected and it most likely ties into at least some of your on going sinus problems. Root canal therapy cannot cure an infected tooth irrelevant of how many times it is performed. The main reason is due to the millions of microscopic canals that every tooth has, of which there is no access to. So irrelevant of how many times the root canal is performed, these canals continue to harbor necrotic, infected nerve material. Thus the pressure, thus the inflammation, thus the pain.... thus the on going infection.
The roots of tooth #13 can be very close if not directly into the sinus membrane. Because your tooth has had a long term infection, the chances of the bacteria proliferating into the sinus is increased. What makes that occurrence even more likely is the apicoectomy (a surgical root canal) that you had by the oral surgeon 3 yrs ago. Do you recall him saying anything about a sinus communication?
Becdedo, your tooth is the source of a severe, long term infection. The only way to stop the proliferation of the infection is to remove this tooth. I would urge you to NOT have this tooth removed by anyone working in a dental clinic or dental school. It will most likely be a complicated extraction and there may be a need to go into the sinus at the same time. This type of oral surgery requires a very experienced oral surgeon, not a student. I also urge you to NOT wait to have this done.
I'm sorry this is so blunt, but you have a severe infection that needs to be tended to asap. NO antibiotic is going to cure this infection, it may not even subside the pain for very long. The pain you have now is worse than it will be after the extraction because once the tooth is out, the source of the problem will be gone and the pressure will be less. Please see an oral surgeon asap.
Bryanna
Quote:
Originally Posted by Becdedo
I'm so glad I found this board. I'm going to apologize for the long post in advance. I have a tooth (I believe its #13) that had a root canal 10 years ago and never really got better. The dentist who did the work told me at 6 months that pain that long wasn't unusual and everything was fine. I have always had a lot of sinus issues and had sinus surgery to correct several issues about 5 years ago. The pain I felt in my tooth was unbearable while my sinuses healed. I went to a different dentist 3 years ago who sent me to an oral surgeon, who did another root canal on the same tooth. About a year ago the filling came out and I have had nothing but problems. I don't currently have dental insurance so I have been going to dental schools and dental clinics with sliding fee scales trying to get the tooth fix or preferably removed. They keep quoting me outrageously high fees to do yet another root canal. This past weekend I woke up in extreme pain and with a lot of facial swelling around that tooth. I went to the ER who put me on keflex (I'm allergic to penicillin and sulfas) and pain killers then referred me to another dental clinic. The dentist cleaned out the tooth and then tried to "open up" the abscess so it could drain. It didn't and caused more pain than I ever thought possible. I went back the next day in extreme pain, saw a different dentist who said it looked like the jaw is infected, once again tried to get the tooth to drain, and said I probably have a sinus infection when I mentioned that lots of pus had been draining out of my sinuses on that side. He told me to stop the keflex and put me on clindamycin and a stronger pain pill and said when it heals I need to get a root canal. A couple of other things-I notice the sinus/tooth problems either happen together or one after the other, and why can't I find a dentist willing to just extract the tooth? It's cost me thousands of dollars and more lost hours to debilitating pain that I would rather have put toward work and family. I checked the website I've seen mentioned several times but unfortunately there aren't any dentists in my area. I have been using cold packs several times a day, taking 600 milligrams ibuprofen every 6 hours, rinsing with warm salt water but am still not getting any relief.
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