Hello,

Something strange and unpleasant seems to be happening to the area where my tooth was extracted last July - basically, my jaw hurts in an increasingly nasty throbbing way a few minutes after chewing anything at all "chewy" and continues to hurt for about an hour or so after. Mind you, this was something that was occurring after the extraction and also when I had an infection that was lanced two weeks later, but it seemed to be going away and by August felt practically nonexistent. Now, however, it seems to have returned with a vengeance and I'm not sure what it actually is. I went for a cleaning with my regular dentist last Tuesday and he said it was probably "scar tissue" that needed to be removed by my OS, which is confusing since I don't quite understand why scar tissue would suddenly and rather randomly get so much worse. Could there be still be an infection that simply never quite healed? I also wonder this because I've gingivitis and therefore probably some infection in my gums (they bleed profusely during the cleaning) that I might have made worse recently when I returned home last September in an odd way: my apartment was very high water pressure and I sometimes try to, while showering, blast my teeth with the forceful spray. I thought this might help things, but now I suspect it could be forcing bacteria deeper into the gums and possibly jawbone.

Anyhow, I'll try and contact my OS and so forth, but figured I'd share this with you guys as well just to see what you think.

- John

P.S. -> I don't know how much this rules out, but I should mentioned that my teeth seem to be doing reasonably well as far as my dentist is concerned (or, as the case seems to be, not concerned), and this pain is clearly brought on by chewing or possibly clenching (I woke up with it this morning).

P.P.S. -> I should also point out that it is really quite painful at times now, though. Throbbing in a sort of deep, radiating king of way, centered somewhere near the now absent tooth.