[kcdb]

Hi,
I am new- this is my first post,
skinny background: After 13 month huge exposure to black mold, I had a tubal ligation and uteral ablation in April 2008. Six months later; bed ridden. Treated for lyme and many other infections for three years. Six months post antibiotics,-December 2012, I had tooth #3 root canaled as well as other restorative work done in this quadrant. The tooth has never been the same. My bite has been adjusted several times. A year later, the dentist notices a mucocele in the same area and sent me to an ENT. He did not think contributing to dental pain. I was referred to an endodontist who suggests root candling adjacent tooth or having mucocele removed. Neither are options to me. I put it off until unbearable this past spring. Eventually had tooth #3 retreated as a canal was missed. No relief. I did a few ozone injections and they resolved the pain and cleared my head with in an hour- however, only lasted a week. Met with oral surgeon today who wants to extract tooth. He said it is reasonable to think the cyst is infection from tooth.
Wouldn't this infection spread in sinuses? it all seems to be contained? While dental relief would be great, I am truly thinking that this is a major body burden that has kept me from getting well the past three years. Is it reasonable that if this is infection that it can keep my body from healing? I have not gone out of the house in over a year. Horrific anxiety, depression, depersonalization, and worst brain fog. I do not even feel human. Would love any feedback. Thx

[Bryanna]

Hi kcdb,

I'm sorry you have been enduring such ill health. Your suspicion about your tooth contributing to your ill health is very highly likely. Many people think our teeth are separate from the rest of our body and that whatever happens to our teeth is some how contained or confined within the area of the tooth. The truth of the matter is that our teeth are intricately connected to our systemic health via blood vessels, cells, nerves, ligaments, and muscles. Oral infection travels through our blood into our organs, brain, bones, etc.

A tooth infection does not occur over night unless some extreme trauma occurred to the tooth resulting in a bacterial infection. Most tooth infections begin with no symptoms and then as the infection progresses it becomes symptomatic. So a tooth infection can actually be brewing in someone for weeks, months, even years before it shows physical or radio graphic signs of a problem. So it is important for you to understand that tooth #3, unless it was injured at that time, was actually infected before you had the root canal.

Any long term bacterial infection in the mouth or the body is going to tax the immune system making that person what is referred to as a "host" meaning someone who is more vulnerable or susceptible to becoming ill. The longer a bacterial infection lingers, especially one that is not diagnosed or misdiagnosed, the more severe or complicated other systemic illnesses will be for that person. So with that knowledge, if you were to write a time line and list the health issues that you have been dealing with since the time of the black mold exposure up to today, your health situation may make more sense to you.

Regarding the root canal procedure on tooth #3.... it is irrelevant how many times a tooth is root canaled or how well or how poorly the procedure is done ... because there is no access to the many hundreds of nerve filled microscopic canals called dentin tubules, these canals will be chronically infected. The bacteria from these canals eventually progresses beyond the tooth, into the bone, the sinus and further. The infection travels via the blood vessels that surround the tooth and dumps it into the main blood supply. It is not uncommon for an infected upper tooth to infect the sinus which would often show as a radio graphic finding similar to a mucocele. Removing the infection from the sinus is only dealing with one aspect of the infection simply because the tooth is the actual root cause of the infection. So to keep the tooth means to keep the infection and irrelevant of what is done to remove the sinus infection, the recurrence of a sinus infection is highly likely. Extracting the tooth removes the source then surgically debriding the infection from the sinus, tissue and bone removes the visible infection allowing the opportunity for the area to heal.

I am going to attach a diagram of the anatomy of a tooth which indicates the countless dentin tubules. This will give you a clearer picture of how much bacteria is trapped inside of that tooth.

I hope this information helps. Please feel free to communicate with us further on this matter.

Bryanna