Yes, I mentioned it to the new dentist. She said that is generally not a good sign, but that the acupuncturist would be able to tell us more. What you said about the sinuses hit home. I have been having sinus issues lately, but wasn't sure if it was due to the change in the weather.

Buster,

I am a huge believer in acupuncture and I believe the acupuncturist will have the best of intentions. However, they know nothing about root canaled teeth with regard to the anatomical nature of the chronic infection in the jaw. Whatever advice they offer you will be short lived as long as that tooth is present.

I would however suggest acupuncture for post op healing of the extraction!

Bryanna

I went with my gut feeling and decided to try a different dentist. I am very happy to report that based on my symptoms and insistence, she gave me a referral to an oral surgeon and I am having it extracted on Nov 5th. I can't wait. The arthritis that started after my root canal in July has gotten worse. I am also having ringing in my ear near the tooth. Thanks Bryanna!

Hi Buster,

Glad you found a dentist you feel comfortably working with.

Hopefully your symptoms will dissipate after the tooth is removed.

Keep us posted.
Bryanna

Good news/bad news.....I had the tooth extracted a week ago. About 12 hours after it was removed I started noticing that my arthritis was going away. Yippee. However, 4 days after the extraction I noticed some pain in my gums above the extraction. It gradually worsened, so I call the surgeons office and they called in an antibiotic for me. That was on Sunday. Every day since then my pain has gotten worse. I went and saw my surgeon yesterday. He said everything looked ok and to wait until Friday to see if the pain started to subside. He gave me a prescription for pain meds the day of the extraction (last weds) and I didn't take any until today. I woke up this morning with swelling on my cheek. I called them back to report this and am going back in to be seen tomorrow. I'm happy that my arthritis went away, but not happy that I traded it for a whole new set of problems.

Hi Buster,

Glad to hear that your arthritic symptoms have improved since the removal of your tooth.

Given your description of the pain and when you first experienced pain, I would say you probably have a dry socket. This needed to be seen by the oral surgeon soon after that pain developed so he could have treated it. To be honest, I am surprised that he said it looked yesterday especially since it was not treated and you were still having that pain. The swelling could indicate that there is inflammation from having the dry socket or it could be sinus related. The antibiotic will help but the site may need a little intervention.

Did the surgeon mention anything about the sinuses when he extracted the tooth? Like the root was in close proximity to it... there was a sinus perforation or communication... the infection (black area on the xray above the tooth) was into or near the sinus... anything like that???

It would be wise to ask him.... "Did I have or do I have a dry socket?" Also ask him the same questions that I asked you about the sinuses.

What have you been rinsing your mouth with?

Are you brushing and flossing all of your teeth?

Have you been eating on that side of your mouth?

I also want to tell you that although it feels like you have traded one issue for another.... the issue you have now is treatable and hopefully it will be better soon. The RA would have been a progressive condition AND you would have still had an infected tooth in your head. So there is a light at the end of the tunnel... it's just covered in pain and disappointment right now :/

Bryanna

Thanks Bryanna. Your last sentence made me chuckle. I have been using a prescription antiseptic mouth rinse. He did not mention anything about my sinuses. He did have to really work to get the tooth out. It was a really large tooth with long roots. He thinks that the soreness is from all of the wiggling and tugging. He did mention that it could be the start of a dry socket, but that it didn't look like one yet. He put something in there to help moisten the area. I can't remember what it was called but I think it started with an A and there was a G in there somewhere He also said it could be that there is a fracture in there. The area right above my teeth is bowed out, hard, red, sore. He said it didn't feel like a fracture. I'm going to request an xray today.

When I first saw my original dentist back in July, he thought, based on my xray, that tooth 13 was the problem. The vitality test pointed to tooth 14. I had 14 extracted. 13 has been feeling pretty tender. I was assuming that it was because it got agitated during the extraction. Now I am wondering if I also have an abscess in 13. The cheekbone pain I am feeling now is very similar to the cheekbone pain I felt in July.

He gave me a prescription for pain meds the day of the extraction. I didn't have to use any pain meds until yesterday. I had severe throbbing. Today I still have swelling, but so far no pain.

Well, its a long shot but it is a shot. There are a small number of dentists who are using a root canal filling material that has formaldehyde as its active ingredient. The theory is that the powder formaldehyde, when mixed with the liquid components, off gasses into the nooks and crannies of the tooth therefore "disinfecting it". The problem is that this material can seep thru the porous tooth and affect surrounding issues and bones. And worse than that, the canals are bleeding and therefore the formaldehyde can get into the blood system and cause systemic problems. There is a long long long story about this issue that the dental world knows about but forgot to tell the rest of us. "Luckily" I was only left with severe nerve pain. Two other stories that I know of left two ladies with a chronic bone infection that about killed one woman and is continuing (after 10+ years) to work on another one. I am aware of a woman who believes it was used on her and she suffers from systemic injuries. She never found out for sure but her dentist lunged at her when she asked if he used Sargenti Paste on her and then filed a restraining order. Unfortunately, her statute of limitations ran out while she was too sick to deal with the legal aspect that would have gotten her some answers. She was diagnosed with heavy metal poisoning. This stuff also has lead and mercury in it.

I was absolutely flabbergasted when I found this out about my injury.

The ADA's ONLY recognized endodontic specialty group (The American association of endodontics, NOT to be confused with the American Endodontic Society which is nothing more than a group of dentists who push the use of this all but illegal material and absolutely put out false information about it including pending FDA approval) is STRONGLY against it. The ADA doesn't recommend it and the FDA claims that it can not be considered safe and effective.

Here are some things that you should look at. It will not allow me to post links so, I'll tell you how to search for them. The first is the AAE's position paper on it. It was originally published in 2005 (I think) and then reissued in 2013. I don't know why they only put the 2013 date in the footer because it makes it look like a new position. Google "Position Statement on Paraformaldehyde-Containing Filling and Sealing Materials". it should take you to the AAE.org site. If both the other lady and you had this material used on them, you are poster children for this AAE position paper where it talks about the possibility of systemic damage.

this next source is to a seriously out of date website that I built when this happened to me as I foolishly thought that if only the regulators knew how much information was out there, surely they would stop this. HA HA...how stupid and naïve could I have been. But, watch the NBC Philadelphia video on it.

Google "sargenti opposition society"


And forget what you read that comes from the American Endodontic Society. I could fill volumes with misinformation that comes out of them, the least of which is their status with the FDA. Never approved, not legitimately working on it, and never will be approved.

feel free to private message me if you want and we can talk about it. Send me your dentist's name and I'll look to see if it is one of the ones that we know are users of it. If this is something that you want to pursue, the first thing that you need to do is get a copy of your dental records before you let the dentist know that you are looking for this. Look for entries like RC2B, RC2W, TCM, paste, N2, N2 Universal...

IF an endodontist did the root canal, it is unlikely to be your issue but not a guarantee. It has been taught in every accredited dental school, since the 70's not to use it and for good reason. What happened to me is now taught at dental schools as the reason you don't use this. My xrays and glossy surgery pictures are in the two leading endodontic textbooks in the U.S. in the chapter about Legal and Ethical Implications of Dentistry (or something like that).

I hope this is not your case.

After rereading the thread, I'm wondering if you ever saw the xray? If so, was there any white material showing outside the bottom of the tooth? Were the canals filled to where they were solid and all the say to the tip of the tooth?

One initial concern about Sargenti is that the canals are not filled all the way to the end or there are voids in the filling. There has been a school of thought around some of the Sargenti using community that since the formaldehyde gasses can go thru the tooth, you don't need to worry about filling them properly....not the truth.

I'm glad that your RA type symptoms went away and I'm glad you found a bonafide OS to do it. There isn't much support for biological/holistic dentists in the dental community and I will admit that I wouldn't use one myself.

If Sargenti Paste (by whatever name) was used on you, you need to find a lawyer. Im not a sue happy person but there are many dentists who would use this crap if not for the fear of litigation. And, thankfully, some insurance companies will not cover a dentist for malpractice if they use this material. They attempt to get around it by coating the outside of the canal with Sargenti and then filling it with the standard of care material guttal percha. It doesn't matter. The sargenti is a part of the permanent filling material and IMHO, in the worst place where the formaldehyde can seep out of the tooth. If you had an overfill (material outside the tooth), the consequences are much worse.

When I was injured, a lot of the dental community believed that it was no longer used...including an OS in NJ who said "No one uses that anymore except in 3rd world countries"....well, welcome to the USA, a third world country. These dentists don't want to be exposed, if you watched the NBC video, you saw that they don't tell their patients. Most settle out of court to keep their secret safe. In a recent newsletter of the Sargenti group they said that they need to stop settling cases and let Sargenti Paste stand on its own in the court system. LOL! But, this does tell me that there are people continuing to be injured by it and once discovered, sue. Its not easy to find a lawyer who will take a dental malpractice suit but I can get you in touch with someone who will. As I said, I'm not sue happy but this is different. The OS who did my surgery kept telling me "GO FIND A LAWYER, I DON'T POINT FINGERS BUT THIS IS DIFFERENT, GO FIND A LAWYER".

BTW- most dentist use diluted household bleach to disinfect the canals before they fill them. It works for probably 99.9% of the legitimate root canals. Sargenti dentists are frequently of the belief that they don't have to disinfect before they fill because the formaldehyde filling will do that for them and allow them to skip that step. All that said, its hard to tell what one sargenti dentist does vs another since they live in a closet.

I could write a book.

OK, last post (I hope). I have too much info rattling around in my brain about this to be able to get the pertinent parts out in a single post.

Sargenti Paste (aka all those other names I mentioned) is advertised by its proponents to have a "disinfecting" period of 7-10 days....so, in other words, the formaldehyde, which is a fixative, will continue to seep into the tissue/nerve/bone that it comes in contact with for those 7-10 days creating more and more damage. This is in contrast to an acid burn where your tissue will attempt to create a crust (or barrier) to stop the penetration. this is why they use formaldehyde for embalming. And the % of formaldehyde in sargenti paste is well within the range of embalming materials. Remember those frogs in biology class...they never came back to life!!!

This "disinfecting" was clear to me after my root canal when my lip and chin started off being numb and over the next week was turning to horrific burning...and where it now stays 9+ years later. My inferior alveolar nerve was burned (nerve runs below bottom molars and feeds sensation to the lip, chin and gums). And oh what a joy my life has become. This root canal ruined me physically, mentally, financially.....and all this from what I thought was going to be a run of the mill procedure.

OK, I have a soap box the size of montana about this. I just want other people to know what I wish someone had told me. It isn't right that this is allowed to go on and us not know about it. Unless you frequent the AAE web site or watch Good Morning America, Dateline or 60 minutes in the early 90's, I'm not sure how you are supposed to know about this. I have those news stories but I can't post them because of copyright and I cant get those networks to respond to my requests. You think as bad as their reports were on this material, they would want to revisit this and tell some more of us about it.

This is bad stuff. I can write a book!