There is a lot of confusion out there regarding the difference between Trigeminal Neuralgia and dental nerve injury.

The flip side of the coin though is that if you have neuropathic pain in your teeth without any physical evidence of a problem with your teeth you should look into TN. So many of us with TN start off in the dental chair having unnecessary and damaging procedures done when there was nothing wrong with our teeth in the first place.

It can be a difficult process to navigate--did the pain come before the dental procedure or the procedure before the pain?

Justjane,

Dental problems are not that cut and dry. When the nerves are dying in a tooth for whatever the reason, there are either no obvious symptoms, vague sporadic symptoms or full blown radio graphic pathology. Generally, an infected tooth does not show radio graphic pathology until the infection has spread beyond the tooth and into the jaw bone. But if the nerves are dying slowly say to decay that has not been clinically seen or diagnosed, then as those nerves die the bacteria and inflammation are most likely not going to be limited to just that tooth. So this when various nerves can become irritated and again, maybe there will be symptoms of that, or maybe there won't.

Also, depending on the angle at which a dental film is taken the pathology may or may not be present or it may or may not show the extent of the problem. Dental xrays are only 2 dimensional and even with the exact angulation it will still only be a 2 dimensional view unless the technician took it at a bi-secting angle. Which is not usually done because it can then be distorting for other anatomical reasons.

So it is not so cut and dry as you say.... did the pain start before the dental treatment or afterwards. I wish it were that simple.

Bryanna

And Trigeminal Neuralgia is not cut and dry either. I understand what you are saying Bryanna.

No problems involving nerves are ever simple. I would say especially in our faces. There is a huge gap in education between dentists and doctors regarding this. Many people are left suffering because of this, whether it is dental or something else. But Trigeminal Neuralgia does have a place in this conversation, and in other conversations involving nerves of the face.

And, with Trigeminal Neuralgia, pain often starts in the teeth, jaw, cheek, ear or nose and is often mistaken for dental problems.

I am a person with Trigeminal Neuralgia that had unnecessary dental work, was tossed around from doctor to dentist to doctor. If there was more knowledge and awareness of this terrible disease then we would be saved a lot of time, money, pain, anxiety and isolation.

justjane,

I agree TN is complicated and all too often people are misdiagnosed, mistreated and severely misinformed. I also know first hand about the huge gap between physicians and dentists not just on this topic but on most areas that connect medicine and dentistry. That is a huge problem and always has been. Dentists do not consider themselves doctors in the same sense as a physician considers himself a doctor. Dentists consider themselves a doctor of dental science which has very little to do with any area of the body other than the mouth and more specifically the teeth. Dentists refer to each other as tooth carpenters because they focus on the technical aspect of dental care more so than the physical health aspect. Physicians rarely if ever get involved in anything dental related in spite of the intricate relationship between oral and systemic health because their education falls very short of oral health. Unfortunately, physicians depend on the dentist to figure out the problem but then the dentist is most likely not thinking past the teeth and he's been taught to go to great measures to retain teeth, even those that are diseased. It's a vicious cycle and who loses every time, the patient.

I am just as frustrated about all this as you are. I feel awful about your situation and it is tough seeing patients go through this time and time again. I agree there needs to be more knowledge and more recognition about TN amongst dentists and physicians. It needs to be incorporated into their education as that is the only way to bring more awareness to it.

Bryanna

Absolutely Bryanna. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. When you look at a diagram of facial nerves it is an intricate web with the majority of the bottom two branches ending in our teeth. I don't understand why the health and treatment of our teeth are not part of general medicine, that they are treated as a separate entity from the rest of our bodies. And the problem does as much lay with doctors. Their knowledge and understanding of nerves is also very minimal.

It seems that any injury, disorder or disease of nerves is very difficult to diagnose and treat. My mom has MS and even though that disease is very well known she has as hard I time as I do with TN in receiving proper care.

The pain that the facial nerves can cause is out of this world. It breaks my heart every time I hear someone's story of endless suffering, mistreatment, confusion and isolation. I have heard stories of people having half of the teeth in their head pulled out trying to rid themselves of the pain only to be left in the same condition or worse.

I am two years in with ATN this time around (I first had it nine years ago when I was 29). I have worked very hard to educate myself and seek proper care and treatment. No part of that journey has been easy and it has been a long road. I do finally have a good neurologist. That took me a year and a half to find. But at the end of the day I am still in pain, my disease is still spreading and morphing on a daily basis and I have no choices at this point, except medication.

I have made it my mission to spread awareness and learn as much as I possibly can from other sufferers. Classic TN and Type 2 TN are very different. Us folks with ATN have very little chance of proper diagnosis and it seems no chance for a cure. I have talked to lots of people that have neuropathy from dental procedures and injuries. They are flooding the TN and ATN forums. And most of them do not seem to understand the difference between TN and injury. There is a lot of misinformation and there are a lot of people receiving invasive procedures for TN when they do not even have TN, which can land them in even more pain. And because neither side of the coin is cut and dry it is impossible to pick apart some peoples' situation and timeline on whether it is an injury or could be TN. But I will tell you that when you are in that dire pain for months on end you will try anything that anyone tells you will help. Desperation leads to bad decisions. And these folks are all out there on there own with no doctor or specialist to help them along the way.

I have learnt far more about my condition and about neuropathy and facial nerves from chatting on forums then I have from any doctor or dentist. The knowledge and awareness that we create is very important, we are all learning as we go and even better if we can help other people on their journey

Thank you Bryanna...that is an excellent list of questions for my new dentist!

Just Jane....Yes, it is very sad when I go to sites and people are having brain surgeries with ATN pain. ATN pain is more than likely related to something OTHER THAN something having to do with anything involving the brain...like a compression.... (as you well know). More than likely direct nerve pain/nerve damage. And it is shocking and sad how many of my fellow ATN sufferers either got their pain after a trip to the dentist and/or developed pain and then went to a dentist and had many teeth removed needlessly or some other inappropriate procedure.

I consider myself very unlucky when I went to a dentist who VERY likely caused my ATN and subsequent dentists who likely caused further damage.

However, I consider myself blessed in that I went to an oral surgeon who was also an MD. What are the chances? This type of doctor is THE ONE! The one that can help us, really. He carefully told me that I had been hurt and that I should no longer see any more dentists. Than now I had to see a neurologist, due to nerve damage. If one can find this type of doctor/dentist....run to him or her asap!

AND, just as what has been discussed here...I tried to convince my neuro that I needed brain surgery. I was so desperate that I probably would have agreed to anything. And, then I was fortunate again. He told me the sad truth....My TN was damaged by a dentist and no surgery would correct this. That I needed to try medication (s).

So, back to what was originally stated by the original poster...it is very important to know what type of TN you have...TN or ATN and to NOT even consider brain surgery when you have ATN.

As many of us have sadly learned, medical professionals might not be "professional" at all and some might be willing to perform an uneeded procedure...even brain surgery.

We all need to educate ourselves!

That website that contains the video is what happened to me and another lady who I found trying to diagnose herself at the same time I was. Neither of us could trust our dentist to tell us the truth. I am not the lady on the video. She continues to have problems with bone infection and is waiting to see if it has spread to her bottom jaw.

I have two molars on the opposite side of my mouth from the sargenti paste tooth (it was removed) that alternate hurting like he**. Some times cold can send me thru the roof. I'm pretty sure that the top molar is cracked and the bottom needs a root canal. My bite hits on those two teeth and I wonder if I have been grinding my teeth at night.

I got a divorce and moved out of town and have no dentist and I hate to admit have not been to one in 2 years. I'm a little concerned from the posts above that ignoring these teeth that might be in need of a root canal can set up an infection???? Did I read that correct?

I believe that I have started having a lot of teeth problems due to dry mouth from all of the medications that I take. I'd prefer to just have them pulled. I can't afford implants at $5K a pop.

It is an absolute truth that many people are damaged by sargenti paste and their symptoms don't show up for months to years and they have no idea what the real cause of their problems are. I wonder how many people have jaw and sinus cancer from this stuff. I figure jaw cancer is in my future. Not only does that stuff contain formaldehyde but also lead and mercury.

Thank you for referring to my website. It is seriously out of date and has a lot of broken links. When this happened to us, we were gun ho thinking that if only the regulators (FDA and state dental boards) knew about all of the information about it, including the AES false claims of FDA approval, they would surely stop this. How stupid and naïve we were. If I had enough motivation left in me after living for 9+ years in severe pain, I'd start a petition to the FDA. Instead, I'm waiting for the head of this group to depart the earth (he is well into his 80s) and go where ever people like him go and to see if the group disbands because no body wants to carry the torch of mistruths that he has been touting. Its a disgrace to the dental patient that the industry knows about it and can protect themselves, their families and friends, but forgot to tell the rest of us. I apparently wasn't watching 60 minutes, Dateline and Good Morning America in the early 1990's when they did stories on it.

BTW, NICO is not considered ethical medicine. there are write-ups about it on quackwatch.org.

Hi pained,

Thank you for clarifying the association you have with the article and website that you posted.

The sargenti paste issue is only one harmful aspect of the problems associated with root canaled teeth. There are numerous others which are just as harmful if not more so. The rc procedure itself is severely flawed because there is no access to the hundreds of tiny canals that contain nerve tissue. That nerve tissue remains in those canals and becomes gangrenous just as any other necrotic tissue would become when there is no longer any blood supplying it vitality. The infectious bacteria that forms inside of those canals does not just quietly reside there. It proliferates and travels freely into the bone, the blood stream and wherever else it feels like it. This proliferation of bacteria is accompanied by the toxins in the sargenti paste which is carried beyond the tooth.

Irrelevant of how well or how poorly a root canal is performed or what medicaments are used during the procedure, the tooth remains diseased from the infectious bacteria residing inside of those tiny canals. All of the toxins from the toxic materials used to attempt to disinfect the interior of the large canals and used to plug up the large canals is going to accompany that infectious bacteria as it travels beyond the tooth.

I am just surprised that you would consider having another root canal in spite of what you have learned and the hell that you have been through.

A word about NICO and statements made by quackwatch. NICO, Necrotizing Ischemic Chronic Osteitis, is a very real problem which has been kept from the public forum by certain influential dental organizations for years. It's disconcerting to me when sites like quackwatch frequently misinform the public knowing full well that there are people who are going to believe that stuff. The best place to learn about NICO is from pathologists who are also dentists and doctors who are truly well informed about the subject.

If you want to learn about NICO, this site would be good place to start: http://maxillofacialcenter.com/NICOmicro.html

Thanks for sharing your story here. If you want to further the conversation or talk more about your own dental problems, please feel free to do so.

Bryanna

Those tiny canals that are not filled/disinfected during a root canal is the whole basis behind SP....although the proponents never say that. When they mix the powder formaldehyde (paraformaldehyde) with the liquid (used to be peanut oil until we started hounding them about peanut allergies), the formaldehyde off gasses and it gets into those nooks and crannies. Unfortunately, it gets outside of the tooth too and can set up problems in nearby teeth, gums, bones, nerves, etc... Enough time goes by that people don't realize that the root canal and especially formaldehyde could be the problem. These dentists don't tell their patients that they are using SP and many, including mine, won't even tell after they injure them. I hounded it out of mine.

I'm not happy about another root canal. I can't afford an implant or a bridge and the teeth would be visible if I just pulled them. if it were back molars, they would be out in a NY minute. I don't know what other option I have.

I have always wondered how cleaning and filling the canals got rid of the infection that is outside the bottom of the tooth and is what they point to to show that you need a root canal (the big black area). Maybe you can explain that. What makes that infection go away?

I wish someone could just give me some heavy duty antibiotics and be done with this.

I live near rural areas and I see all of these people with few teeth and black ones. I can't imagine how much pain they went thru as those teeth were getting to that point. I have been relatively lucky with my teeth until this root canal and now all the meds/dry mouth. That root canal ruined my life....physically, emotionally, financially, .... the whole gamut.

Pained,

I am very well versed on the root canal procedure as I have assisted on thousands of these procedures over the course of 30+ years. You are very mistaken about the hundreds of tiny canals inside of every tooth. NO medicament, irrelevant of what is used penetrates those canals. The Sargenti Paste or whatever else is used is meant to kill off the remnants of nerve tissue that attach themselves to the interior walls of the large canals. Those tiny canals are microscopic, long and curvy. There is no access to that nerve tissue via any instrument, solution, toxin, laser.. nothing.

The toxins from the bacteria formed in those tiny canals due to the necrotic nerve tissue that continues to reside in them along with the toxins from the medicaments used to "disinfect" the large canals together proliferate through the dentin tubules of the tooth and that is how they get outside of the tooth and into the periodontal ligament, the jaw bone, the blood vessels, etc.

The area that forms at the apex (root) of a root canaled tooth.... is the result of those toxins that have proliferated through the tooth resulting in the formation of cysts and abscesses in the bone. You can surgically debride that apical area a million times but so long as the infected/toxic tooth is present, the infection remains.

The area that forms around a tooth from a non root canaled tooth, occurs from the infectious bacteria that resides inside of an infected tooth. Because the tiny canals can never be rid of infected nerve tissue, the tooth will remain infected even after it is root canaled. Once the rc is done, then the proliferation of bacteria from the infection and from the toxins of the "disinfectants" used during the rc procedure cause further injury and disease to occur in the bone and beyond.

Bryanna