Hello again
Bryanna cyst are you referring to the very top of the root? I was told it looked fine but had a slight curve in it. The endodontist I saw told me the end of the tooth had calcified so he couldn't get all the way to the end. Or did you mean in the black area above the tooth? It's pretty hard for me not very X-ray literate. All the dentists I've seen saw nothing wrong at all. You'd think they'd look harder when someone tells them it's bothering them.
That other root canal I have has only bothered me once for two days after a sinus cold weirdest feeling. Not wanting to tackle this tooth.
The one wisdom tooth I have left, I really don't want to do anything with as I am not too happy with my latest extractions. So I will take your advise to heart and floss daily that tooth at the very least.
One last question could all this pain be coming from that bone bump? It is super sensitive.
Pam

Hi Pam,

I know this will be hard to believe as I still find it amazing and disturbing at the same time.... but some++ dentists can be really lax at diagnosing radio graphic pathology! How could that be? I ask myself that over and over again every day. My conclusion is this, and I have mentioned before, dentists are taught to focus and are usually most interested on the "carpentry" aspect of dentistry and unless they find the pathology aspect interesting, they tend to stay focused on the carpentry. It is not unusual for dentist after dentist to miss the radio graphic findings leaving the patient to think their pain is "all in their head". We have had so many people post here about this very thing and through perseverance they finally came up on someone who diagnosed them properly. So when someone says to me, I went to 15 dentists and none of them saw the problem, until this last one .... I am frustrated for that person but not at all surprised by that.

When a dentist or someone like myself is trained, outside of the typical curriculum, to read radio graphs from a pathology perspective, we are able to pick up on things that are often missed. I was trained by a periodontist whose passion was oral pathology and he incorporated this into his practice. So I had the best training for this because I was able to see the clinical aspect of the radio graphic view during surgeries.

The information that I give here about the radio graphic pathology that I find on the xrays is intended to be used as possible findings that should be brought to the dentists attention. So the dentist takes a deliberately closer look. Will the end result always turn out for the best, unfortunately not. But the more specific information you can give your dentist the better off you will be in the long run.

The cyst that I am referring to is at the end of the root. Yes the root had a curve in it also. The radio graphic cyst resembles a small round circle with petal shaped edges. When these cysts are removed in whole form, that is exactly what they look like.

Another reason many dentists do not "diagnose" these cysts as such is because they are "typically" seen at the root tips of most root canaled teeth. Therefore, they are considered "normal" as in "typical". Some dentists even refer to them as "scar tissue".

The dark black areas directly above the roots of your posterior teeth are your sinuses.

The other root canaled tooth most likely bothered you with the sinus/cold thing because it too is in close proximity to your sinus. So that is not weird or unusual for that to happen. Whether a root canaled tooth has physical symptoms or not is irrelevant as the the tooth will always be unhealthy.

The bone bump may be a part of your normal anatomy and I say that because if I remember correctly you said it has been there for years. This area of bone could have been traumatized during the removal of the pre molar. It could even be splintered or slightly fractured which can occur during the removal of an infected tooth as the bacteria has caused some deterioration in the bone causing it to be weak and crumbly. Sometimes this piece of bone needs to be removed or shaved down if it becomes a nuisance or gets infected. Other times it will heal on its own but you may be left with a small protrusion of bone. Do I think that area is the culprit of your problem... probably not.

Bryanna