Nirvana91

Hi all,

I was hoping for a little advice as to what I can do here. I'll give you my story, I'm sorry for the length.

On 12/21/12 I had both my lower wisdom teeth extracted. One was impacted, and the other was also removed at the recommendation of both my regular dentist and the oral surgeon that I met with. The extraction itself was rather difficult. I had IV sedation (although I was totally aware, awake, and responsive, but there was no pain during the procedure). The surgeon commented that my bones were very hard and that both of them had to be cut into pieces instead of being yanked out. He has been doing this for 40 years and said it was a very difficult extraction.

Anyway, the recovery was hard but I was progressing. I was doing everything by the book, and did not miss any antibiotics or do anything out of line (I do not smoke, and I did not drink out of a straw, swish vigorously, etc). Unfortunately I still got an infection on the left side. I went back to the surgeon in early January and he reopened the area, cleaned all the pus and gunk out, and scraped the socket to remove the infection. Despite shooting me all over the place with novacaine, this was the worst and most traumatic experience of my life. I felt everything, and it was like a horror movie. I am a 30 year old male and I was crying like a baby both during and after. The surgeon was expecting to find something in the hole, like a piece of bone, food, or something. Unfortunately he didn't find ANYTHING. We're hoping that something was actually in there and got sucked up in the suction without them seeing it. Otherwise, there is no explanation for why there was an infection. However, I was glad to at least have it over, and be back on track to recovery. I went through 10 days of 2x 875mg Amoxicillin.

In the weeks that followed, I continued to irrigate both holes to get the food and crud out that built up. The right hole (the one that did NOT get infected) was actually much bigger and much deeper, so it was a little harder to clean. While I was at work on Friday 1/18/13, I was irrigating the right hole like normal (with an irrigation syringe), when I felt a huge shot of pain all the way from my socket to my ear drum. After the pain subsided, I was left with my cheek feeling "full." It is a very hard sensation to describe. I felt like my cheek, the back of my mouth, and my gums (both upper and lower) were full of something. I know this is not what actually happened, but it felt like the water I shot into the socket flew all the way up my face and remained stuck in there, all the way up near my ear. Although there was some pain, it was mainly a major discomfort. Also FYI, although I had all these feelings on the inside I did not notice any actual swelling or anything on noticeable on the outside. It apparently was all the inside.

The extreme discomfort continued but thankfully I was able to get some sleep. In the morning, the pain and discomfort seemed to be mostly gone, but then as the day went on it came back again, in the same way (feels full in my cheek, gums, rear mouth, etc), and it almost feels like somebody is pulling on my gums. Over the next couple days the same thing kept happening: feels somewhat ok (not 100%, but decent) in the morning, worse as the day wears on. I wouldn't describe it as total pain, but definitely major discomfort.

Thankfully I had another follow-up appointment with the surgeon already scheduled for 1/21/13. I explained to the surgeon what happened, and he took a Panorex, and examined the site. He said everything seems to be healing well, and there is no swelling or other signs of the infection returning. He did not discount my symptoms, but from what he could see there was nothing that should be causing this. He even sent me upstairs to my regular dentist (they are in the same building) and they took some other x-rays and examined me as well, with the same result.

I'm at a big loss here. I am terrified of the original infection returning on my left side (since they didn't find anything in there the first time), and now I've got this extreme discomfort in the right side of my face for most of the day. I find myself twitching the right side of my jaw trying to get this discomfort to go away, but of course nothing seems to be working.

Does anybody have any ideas as to what the heck is going on here? This has been a total nightmare from start to finish, and I really just want this to be over

Sorry for the long message, and thanks for reading.