I made a post in introductions and was told to post it here instead. So I'm pasting this here.

Greetings! I opened an account here so that maybe I could get some help and friendly advice for my future dental escapades.

Anyway to start things off, I'm 24 female and live in southern Illinois. Not much in the ways of good dentistry or good anything medical around here. I would love to visit holistic alternative medicinal places too but that's even further from possible.

I had a bad time a couple years ago and didn't really care about my health and well being; that included my teeth as well, I guess you could say I was very depressed. I cleaned my teeth very seldomly and within a year span I developed cavities in almost every single tooth, only when a couple got so sensitive and painful did I really start paying attention; at this time is also when I got out of my funk and decided to start taking care of myself which also included better nutrition and quitting bad food habits like soda, which I drank every day and sometimes multiple times a day. I ended up quitting it cold turkey and it was the best thing I could have done and was surprisingly not that difficult. (now trying to get my mother to stop drinking the stuff is another story)

Anyway come present day, I have been able to somewhat stave off further damage by not eating or drinking sweets anywhere near as I used to, and cleaning my teeth regularly. But that doesn't fix what damage I already have done.

I had this one cavity that I HAD to get fixed ASAP because it was a large gaping hole inside my #30 molar; it was really the only one that caused me pain at the time. I would get food stuck in it every time I ate something, so I had to take brushes you use for braces to clean it out; which if I accidentally poked the bottom of the hole it would hurt and throb for a long time, as well if I accidentally chewed on that side and get something stuck in it. Other than the occasional painful jab and the annoyance of cleaning it out all the time I had no other problems with it or any other tooth other than how ugly they looked.

About 2-3 weeks ago I went to my dentist to get my molar filled, but at the same time I also had what seemed like an infection on the outside of my gums where my old filling is(#19 and I think I had this done when I was like 10 or 11) like a little pus pocket, it ended up busting the night before I went to the office. I went with the resin to match my color. The filling had to go deep so it ended up being a very painful procedure, I ended up needing two shots to numb the area but it still didn't help once he got to the very bottom. But I was sooo estatic when it was done, I thought wow! Now I won't have the tedious time of cleaning that hole out every time I put something in my mouth! I was also prescribed amoxicillin 500mg for my infection.

But as soon as the numbing medication wore off I started feeling a dull throbbing in my lower right jaw. I didn't pay much attention to it, I figured that it was just pain from getting drilled on, having my mouth open for so long, from where the injection sites were or any number of things that would just go away with time. But the pain was enough that I had to take some ibuprophen in order to be comfortable.

Well as I'm here on this site, the pain didn't go away, my jaw has been aching and throbbing for the last 3 weeks; my infection healed nicely within a couple days though. But early in the am on Thursday morning I was awoken with sharp pangs along with my ache and throbbing so painful that I just started bawling my eyes out as I could not go back to sleep or take anything that would help; and it's been like that for the last couple days. So later in the afternoon I went to see my dentist and told him what has been going on. He said that it could be a number of things, and most likely that it was an infection and I would have to get a root canal in the same tooth he just filled. You would think a dentist would know these things ahead of time before putting you in a painful situation like this. He ended up just prescribing me the amoxicillin again and a prescription for hydrocodo/acetamin 7.5-300mg.

Anyway I take the vicodin according to the directions on the bottle, and it doesn't seem to do much of anything. The pain would go in and go out again, as soon as I thought I was ok and it started to subside it would come back again in full force, it happend weither I was laying down or not. Eventually my mother was getting tired of seeing me in pain and bursting into tears every 30-40 minutes and told me I should go to the ER. So I went about dinner time last night and told them what I've been going through, unfurtunatly the Dr couldn't prescribe me anything different but he did tell me that I should have been taking a full 2400mg a day dose of ibuprophen instead of just a measley 800-1200mg minimum dose and that I should take 1, 2 or even 3 doses of vicodin at a time depending on my pain. He also said that the pain was from inflamation of all the white blood cells trying to heal my infection. So he gave me a couple shots, one in my lower jaw and one in my upper jaw of that stuff that numbs and an anti-inflamatory and a pain pill thats double the vicodin i'm taking right now and that helped me a lot last night, I could finally get some sleep.

So about an hour ago I woke up and was in pain again, not as intense because the numbing medication is still active but enough where I was almost crying again lol. I then took the 3 ibuprophen he said to take and 2 vicodins and it's finally kicked in about right now, I can still feel a dull pain but it's tolerable enough to where I can go back to sleep. It would have been nice to have had this information when I went to the dentist on Thursday thats for sure. Hopefully this will give me a couple days for the antibiotic to get to work.

Anyway if it does happen to be that that whole tooth is bad I don't really want to get a root canal, besides being painful I just don't see the beneficial side to it. I also don't want to get it pulled but I think that's what I'll end up having to do.

tl;dr Had filling, now whole right side of my face has excruciating pain most likely due to an infection.

Now that I'm done writing this I'm going to try sleeping again. Any advice in the meantime?

Hi Joanne,

I try to help here as much as I can but please try to keep your posts on this forum to just the facts about the tooth problem if possible. As you can see this forum is quite active with some very lengthy, complicated dental problems and I am the only one here to answer these posts knowledgeably. I volunteer my time between working etc. and I just don't have the time to read through all of the "other" stuff. I understand you have fear of the dentist etc. but those issues are not the problem that brings you here, correct? I hope you understand

Because you have so many other neglected dental issues, it is not possible for someone on the internet to tell you what is going on with this tooth or the infected area as your other dental issues are going to be a part of the whole problem.

You need to have a thorough check up and xrays to see what your dental problems are and then work out a treatment plan with your dentist. No amount of antibiotics or pain meds are going to solve or cure your immediate problem because you have other dental problems that are contributing to the overall bacteria and ill health of your mouth. They may temporarily subside the symptoms but they will not cure it.

FYI.... Anytime the nerve of a tooth becomes infected, there will be a choice to do a root canal or an extraction. The root canal does not cure the infected tooth it just sometimes buys some time before it needs to be removed. However in the interim the infection spreads beyond the tooth into the jawbone making the initial problem much more complicated. An extraction removes the source of the infection (which is the tooth) thereby solving the problem of the infected tooth. You can discuss replacement options with your dentist as this will take into consideration the health of your other teeth.

I hope this information is helpful to you.
Bryanna