The Root Canal from H3ll!

[SocketCreep]

Hey Sudo, I hope you can add some encouragement here.

I got a root canal last Wed. No big deal, I've inherited bad teeth from both sides of my family, so, I had a few. Once the numbness wore off there was some residual pain. Again, no big deal. I've had the residual pain for as much as a couple days later. This time though, it got worse and worse till on Sat night, I was climbing the walls. Over the counter pain killers like Ora-Jel would not even touch the pain. My mouth would get all numb in that area but the pain screamed over the numbness.

Finally after taking some Excedrine Migrane and rubbing a crushed asprin directly on the area, I was able to get some sleep.

I went to the dentist again on Monday, and he looked at the X-ray he took post procedure last Wed, and said, "I think I see your problem"

He said this doesn't happen often, but it does happen, where the fill material protrudes out past the end of the tooth into the upper gum area. I can see how this would happen occasionally. He gave me a prescription for some strong anti-inflamatory steroids, Tylenol 3 with codine, and Amoxicillan for any infection that may occur. He said that after a week, if everything does not calm down and heal the way it is, he may have to do minor surgery to shave off the end of the root to smoothe it back down.

Please pray with me that the medicines work, and when the prescriptions run out, there is no pain left. I do not wish to go through that last alternative he gave me.

He is a good dentist and have all the confidence in the world in his ability. Sh1t happens sometimes. But it's my mouth and it hurts. The only thing that I am questioning now is, he looked at an X-ray made the day of the root canal. He must have seen this as a possibility then, and just hoped it would not cause any problem. He did not take any new X-rays at all to see any change. My initial thought was that maybe the fill material was close to the end, and a bite into a hard substance pushed it all the way through the end. But it looks that it was through before I left the office.

Y3K -- Start Early

[mj412]

in my opinion the worst pain is a tooth or an ear ache.

my child had an root canal once and complained for days about pain , when I took her back to the dentist he said it was impossible she had that amount of pain without the nerve, but she did.

maybe something like what your going through happened to her. It did go away after about two weeks but she was in agony.

im sorry I hope it gets better.

[Sudo]

SocketCreep,

The pain you described doesn't come from a little over extending of the filling material in the root canal. If the Root canal is inadvertantly (don't you love the way we say things?) overfilled, then it'll hurt whenever you forget and bite on it for a few days to a week or so.

But the kind of pain you described? No, that's residual infection that goes wild after the the ends of the tooth are sealed up with filling material and no place for the infection to drain. I treat it a little differently but that's what the antibiotics were for.

Don't know what to tell you about the x-rays. I personally take lots of them during a root canal and will tell patients what I think they can expect. Uh.. you should have been able to have gotten hold of the dentist (or whoever was taking call for him) and got some better pain meds and antibiotics phoned in.

Sorry you had such a bad experience, SocketCreep. Anything specific you want to ask me perhaps? I'm feeling like I haven't really answered your post or something.

sudo

[SocketCreep]

Thanks Sudo.

The meds I took initially was due to desparation and a pharmacy not being available that late.

I don't know about the infection, just that he was trying to have the antibiotics there to fight it up front.

The steroid is METHYLPREDNISOLONE DOSPA (MEDROL)

which I took 6 the first day, five the next and so on till they are gone.

It seems to be working for the pain so far. Can an antibiotic fight an infection if the infection has no place to drain?

Y3K -- Start Early