Hi all,

I read through a lot of these stories and the advice and solutions seemed to be very informative and helpful to the posters! I'm starting to panic about my situation and figured maybe someone can help me figure out if I'm gonna be alright.

10 years ago I was 15 and my brother knocked my left front tooth and the one next to it backwards. I got a root canal the next day and felt perfectly fine for 9.9 years up until 2 weeks ago when I woke up in the middle of the night and one of the teeth was throbbing very painfully. The endodontist that did my surgery originally is retired now, plus I moved to Boston, so I made an appointment with a new dentist the next day.

They took some xrays and noticed some small black spots up in the gums above the root canals (which looked fine, they said). The dentist recommended an endodontist to do a root canal retreatment to get rid of the bacteria and prescribed some Amoxicillin and Ibuprofen in the meantime. Today was my root canal retreatment.

The endodontist was in there for like an hour and eventually decided that he couldn't get all of the bacteria in this visit. He plugged the one tooth's root back up with 'medicine' and we made an appointment to finish the retreatment on Feb. 12th. He said I could eat normally without any issues when the Novocaine wore off. He also gave me his cell phone number and told me to call him if the area got swollen.

I got home, and in a few hours when the Novocaine wore off I ate a yogurt. Nothing hurt, really, just felt a little sensitive. After eating now the back of the tooth in question feels a little rough to the tongue instead of the smooth it felt before, even after lightly brushing it and rinsing with mouthwash.

That set me off into a bit of a panic-mode. I googled and googled and saw so many people having real issues with root canal retreats...am I panicking too soon?

Thanks for listening and understanding how scary it is to try to make decisions about this stuff!

Talk soon,

Alan

Hi Alan,

The rough spot on the back of this tooth may be the temporary filling material he used to patch up the access hole. It is called Cavit and is similar to a dry silly putty. It is rough after it dries.

Did either of your dentists talk to you about a long term solution to the chronic infection in these teeth which would be to remove them and replace them with dental implants?

The bone above the four front teeth is thin compared to the bone in the rest of the mouth. The bacteria from a chronic infection will deteriorate this bone causing it to become very fragile. Root canaled teeth are chronically infected because there is no way to remove the dead tissue from the tiny canals. So although you think you were symptom free for 9+ yrs, the fact is the infection was always brewing, you just weren't feeling it.

I'm not telling you this to make you panic more.... I'm telling you this to help you become better informed in case neither dentist has talked to about this.
You have the right to be properly informed so you can make decisions that you feel are in your best interest.

So if you think you want a long term solution and do not want to have to deal with these teeth again, talk to your dentist about removing them before the bone becomes too fragile for dental implants.

All the best to you!
Bryanna

Thanks for the response Bryanna!

I'm glad the roughness is normal from the Cavit in the short term.

As far as the long term goes, it seems like yanking the dead teeth altogether and going for implants is the safest route. My dentist did mention that this was an option but said root canal would be 90-95% effective and I'd get to keep my teeth. I guess I didn't realize that root canal is just prolonging the inevitable. If things continue to give me trouble over the next few months I'll go for the dental implants before it's too late.

Thanks so much for the help!

Alan

Alan,

When a dentist says this root canal will be %%% effective or this will cure your infection.... the translation of that is... this is a temporary measure to "retain" an infected/inflamed tooth for an undisclosed amount of time. The procedure actually causes inflammation and trauma to the tooth and surrounding periodontal ligament, etc .... if the tooth eventually calms down from the procedure, it is considered to be successful. It is just a matter of time before symptoms show again and they may at that point actually involve a nearby tooth. Often times, as in your case, the symptoms are silent until the bacteria has progressed passed the tooth into the bone and/or show up on an x-ray, the tooth feels sore or loose, the tooth discolors or swelling occurs.

My whole point in sharing this information with you and whomever else is reading this is simply to make it clear that the longer these teeth are present, the more deterioration will occur making replacement of them more complicated and more expensive. All dental offices see this exact thing every day and yet patients are rarely, rarely, given enough information to make an informed decision. The option of extraction and replacement is briefly mentioned, if at all, and once the patient says... "but I want to keep my tooth"... the discussion about removal goes no further.

On the health side of all of this.... all of our teeth correlate with other areas/organs of our body. Here is a link to show those correlations...one at a time click on the teeth on the chart that have root canals and see what areas these teeth are directly associated with....
http://naturaldentistry.us/holistic-...nitas-dentist/

My intention is not to push you in any direction, just to give you the opportunity to be well informed.

All the best to you!
Bryanna

Thank you very much for your time and information Bryanna...I feel more confident with knowing what the heck is going on in my mouth after reading through all this stuff.

Now I can have a much better conversation with my dentist to figure out what the best course of action for me is.

Thanks again for all your time and help...you're really making a difference for people one post at a time!

I'll keep this thread updated if anyone else is reading along with similar issues.

Alan,

You are very welcome Thank you for being so open minded!

Please ask questions of your dentist irrelevant of how insignificant you think they may be and keep in mind the knowledge that you have learned here.

Do keep us updated!!

Bryanna

I forgot to add also that I asked if just removing the tooth was an option. I was told that this would only create a "domino effect" of problems with neighboring teeth.

Musigal,

This is not true in all cases. The domino affect can occur from an infected tooth as the infection spreads to neighboring teeth. The end result of a missing tooth may be some shifting in other teeth but that is usually prevented by replacing the missing tooth before the shift occurs.

Bryanna