[Haiku]

This is part of my "ten years and counting type 2 pain" story. I am sharing what 7 dentists, 2 endodontists, 2 oral surgeons, and 2 Ear/Nose/Throat doctors failed to recognize.

The moment a bridge was cemented in the back of the upper left quadrant, an extremely rotten bacterial taste exploded in the back of my throat. This was a one time incident, although years later I noticed a bacterial taste in the back of my throat upon waking up, sometimes twice a week, sometimes only every few months.
Simultaneously, when that bridge was put in, the severe & constant vise grip type pain under that bridge started that day.

Naturally, I suspected that a hidden bacterial infection was under that bridge, and my question to the dentist was: "Can a tooth underneath the bridge be rotten, but why do I notice this taste in the throat?". The dentist said there was "nothing" (even though of course there had been 'something'). The other professionals that I listed above either shrugged, or implied I was imagining things. One said what I have is 'acid reflux' - as if I did not know the difference, and he did not even bother to ask if I even experience 'acid relux' (which I didn't and never had).

More than nine years later, I noticed something on the back of my tongue. I spit it out, it was a small whitish lump that smelled bad. I did research and thus found out about tonsilloliths, which is something I had never heard of before, but has been documented widely on the internet. I never had 'bad breath' by the way.

Without any doubt, the explanation of what happened when the bridge was put in was that the suction tube that is used for saliva had dislodged a tonsillolith, and the intense taste of decay exploded when it got squashed.

Once I knew I had these tonsil stones, I went to an ENT who removed several large ones that were lodged in the left tonsil. I was not able to see them, but the two previous ENT's that I described the situation to should have seen them.

I am still appalled that none of the professionals above seemed familiar with such a common issue, and did not bother to even try to explain it, and generally just blew off my description of facts.

Needless to say, for years I had reason to be very concerned that osteomyelitis / infection of the bone may be the cause of my pain, also because throbbing was present, as well as a swollen lymph node on that side (which went away after the tonsil stones were removed). None of above mentioned doctors ever ordered a CT scan.

Despite normal x-rays, teeth were pulled that indeed turned out to have been healthy. If there had not been good reason to suspect hidden decay, this would not have happened.
As is fairly typical for 'nerve patients', the pain got much much worse after the second extraction.