Hello. I'm not sure what to do. I'm now 4 months+ after a complicated extraction and still having significant jaw pain. I'm worried that there may be an infection in the jaw bone? How would I know, and what should I do?

That's the brief question, but for those who may be interested, the background is a long story:

I was referred to Maxillo Facial clinic rather than my own dentist doing the surgery. I had a partially exposed, impacted wisdom tooth (lower left). To extract the tooth, the gum and cheek had to be cut, the tooth had to be dissected and part of the jaw bone also removed. My jaw was clamped open and my tongue clamped to the side. (All very nice, eh? )

When the anaesthetic wore off, I couldn't believe the pain. Also, it kept bleeding, despite my gum and cheek being stitched. I had to call my G.P. for stronger painkillers.

Over the next few days, I had to contact my G.P. several times for increasingly stronger painkillers (codeine and amytriptaline). Nothing he gave me relieved the pain, just took the edge off it. I never felt pain like it - child birth was easy by comparison, and that's saying something!

By day 5, I couldn't stand it any longer and called out of hours surgery (it was the weekend). I ended up at A&E where I had to wait over 3 hours to be seen by junior maxillo facial doctor, who poked me (agony) and told me it all looked fine, although it was what they would consider "the extreme end of normal" There was no sign of infection and it would just take time to heal. So home I went.........

The pain got worse. This was now my 5th sleepless night in agony. I went back to the hospital the next day and insisted on seeing the surgeon who had performed the extraction. After some persuasion, the surgeon agreed to clean out the wound and see what was going on, but quite sure that there was nothing wrong....... It turned out I had a nasty infection AND dry socket!!!!

I had it packed, and I had to go back several times to have it repacked. Eventually, I was seen again by the same junior who had dismissed me (wrongly) from A&E, and once again he told me that it all looked fine and I wouldn't need to come back..... Well, a week later, I ended up going to my own dentist because the packing that had been left in by the junior doctor had now started to go sceptic. I had it packed another twice by my own dentist.

Meanwhile, I was feeling particularly unwell and exhausted (perhaps not surprising). I was not fit to go back to work and my doctor diagnosed a relapse of M.E./chronic fatigue syndrome. (Although I've had M.E. for a long time, I had been keeping quite well before the dental surgery.)

It is now over four months since the dental surgery. I am still off my work ill and the pain in my jaw seems to be getting worse instead of better. The gum has not entirely healed over, which means I am still getting sensitivity in the tooth in front of the extraction site, and the "hole" that is left is big enough to catch small particles of food, but small enough that it is very awkward to try to clean out.

I am now concerned that I may have an infection in the jawbone itself. I feel as if the medical professionals involved in my case just think I'm a pest, but I am scared NOT to have this investigated, because if there IS something wrong and it's not dealt with, it will just be worse in the long run. The pain I have now is nothing compared to what it was in the early days, but it does seem to have got worse again over the last few weeks. It is more of an ache in the jaw, sorer if I press it, and it sometimes feels like it's itchy inside the bone. It's just grumbling away all the time. To make matters worse, I've had a headache EVERY DAY since the surgery. I'm really, really getting fed up with it and just want to be well again. If I'd known what was ahead of me, I'd have kept the "slightly problematic" impacted wisdom tooth!!!

Anyway, to those of you who made it to the end of my story, thank you for reading I hope someone can offer me some advice as to what to do next, if indeed anything needs doing. Hopefully a bit of reassurance is all I need.

Many thanks. Take care of yourself.

Jamsine x

p.s. I did ask my doctor to phone the maxillo facial surgeon to ask them to see me to x-ray and scan the jaw, but he seems to have "forgotten" to do it and is off on holiday until the new year. Would it be improper for me to phone the hosptial direct myself?

(location: Scotland, UK)