Root Canals Again! - Dental Health Message Board

ian27 · 04-09-2004, 12:47 PM

Hello all,

As I'd previously posted, I had my final root canal filling completed yesterday (the second in 2 weeks). Unfortunately, I've woken up this morning with some significant pain in the two teeth that have been filled (one of them was filled 2 weeks ago). It's kind of a burning, throbbing pain which isn't really decreased with ibroprofen. My dentist told me that it may take a day or two to settle down but she gave me the impression that I probably shouldn't have any discomfort at all.

What are other people's experiences of this? I'm worried that it may not have worked and I may have to have the teeth extracted!!!

I have a previous experience a few years ago of an abscess which I had root canalled, this failed and I had to have it extracted after years of discomfort on and off, so I may be being a bit too sensitive about it.

Any advice anybody?

Ian

brwneyez9 · 04-10-2004, 08:41 PM

Ok i have had two rct's done. They both went great. After the first one i had a little bitting sens when i would chew on it. The second one was alot more sens. Anyways i had alot of pain. It was horrible. After a week the pain just went away. It is normal to have some discomfort after rct. There are also other things to think about if the pain isn't gone in a couple of weeks. If the rct wasn't filled proprely (like maybe the one you had to have ext wasn't) infection can get in there or still be there and cause the tooth to abcess again or pain not to go away. You would be able to tell even as a patient by looking at the xray. What happen when the rct is done there are fillings placed down where the nerve used to be called gutta percha. On the xrays that shows up white. So what you will see is the big white filling and then white line coming down the should go all the way to the end of the tooth, but shouldn't pass out the end of the tooth. I don't know if your dentist shows you this stuff and explains it, but mine does. I wouldn't worry about that yet. I would give the tooth sometime to heal. You have to realize you had to have surgery done on that tooth and like any other part of your body that you would have surgery on it's going to have discomfort. It can be something where you need to take some advil or something and put heating pad on it. Give it time, don't freak out. It needs to heal after the surgery. I know bad stuff from the past don't help that at all. Good luck

ikus · 04-11-2004, 05:22 AM

I've had this problem also, i suggest if it doesnt get better after 4/5 days see your dentist again. My problem got better after 3 days, it affected other teeth also in my mouth. My dentist told me they sometimes get sympathy pains.
Generally it is still sore around the area the root was taken out so can take a few days to settle down. Dont worry one root canal is not the same as another some hurt more some less. It could be you need to continue to take antibiotics to clear the infection altogether (your dentist will advise you)

I wish you luck and remember if the pain persists dont be afraid to contact your dentist - thats what they get paid for

ian27 · 04-11-2004, 05:39 AM

Thanks for all your feedback. I think most of the pain that I'm feeling is coming from the tooth that I had filled about 3 weeks ago. To be honest, the one next to it that I had filled on Thursday doesn't appear to be given me too much trouble which seems to be a good sign that one of them might have worked anyway

I spoke to the Emergency dentist yesterday about it and she said that from what I'd described it certainly sounds like the tooth that is giving me trouble has abscessed again. She gave me some more antibiotics and pain medication, and told me to see my regular dentist this week about it but suggested that it might be a good idea that I have it extracted.

It's a shame as this tooth is on the front lower jaw so it will look terrible with a gap in it but a friend told me that you can sometimes have a bridge built or something like that to cover the gap - is this correct?

Thanks.

Ian