CINDYLOUWHO

Hi Jen, I don't mean to frighten you, but what is going on with you, sounds identical to what my daughter went thru last year. She had osteomyelitis in her lower left jawbone that had developed after having all 4 of her wisdom teeth extracted. She too developed a lump on her lower left extraction site that was tender to the touch. She went back to the oral surgeon who did the wisdom teeth extraction and he just sent her home with oral antibiotics which seemed to help for a very short period of time, but then the lump and pain soon came back with avengence. She returned again and this time he opened it up and cleaned it up and sent her home with more oral antibiotics. During this time, we did some searches on the internet and found this Healthboard forum (Thank-God). This is where we learned about osteomyelitis. With the knowledge we learned from other people on these boards, who were familiar with osteomyelitis, we took my daughter to Indiana University School of Dentistry where she immediatly got the treatment that is necessary for osteomyelitis(bone infection). This treatment consists of surgery to scrape the bone of dead tissues(debridments) and cultures to determine which antibiotics will work best. Intraveinous(IV) antibiotics(not oral) for a minimum of 6 weeks (my daughter was on IV for 9 weeks) must accompany the debridments. My daughter was only 18 yr. old and also very healthy when she had her wisdom teeth removed and developed this bone infection. If you are still having pain and swelling in the area, please mention osteomyelitis to your doctor and go to someone who is familiar with the proper treatment of it ASAP! Best wishes to you, Cindy