I went through what I thought was a routine root canal last Tuesday. On Friday, I went back to my Dentist with pain in that tooth. He re opened the tooth, and cleaned it out again, saying that he was 99.9999% sure he got all the nerve this time. (He laughed…I didn’t).
On Tuesday, I am headed back to the dentist with pain still bothering me. What are my chances for a third try, or, do you think I can kiss this tooth good-bye? The bad part is that this tooth is connected to a cap that has no tooth below it, so, I will loose two teeth if he ends up pulling it. He has been my Dentist for over twenty years, and I trust his judgement fully.
Give me happy opinions.
How bad is the pain? If it is REAALY bad then yes, maybe some nerve is left. If it is just miserable, it might be that the main nerve along your jaw has been irritated. (I might be talking out of my you know where here!) I have trouble on the upper right side of my face, mess with ANY tooth along there and I will have pain in the rest of them for a couple of weeks after - particularly so after last year’s root canal. The dentist was sure he had got all the root so finally capped with with some “medicine” inside it (I live in Japan so missed the finer points of what it was… sigh) to settle down, and sure enough it did. And he must have indeed got all the nerve because the rest of the filling proceded with no more anesthesia and no problems. It took a good few weeks though.
Good luck.
The only thing I can add is, is the tooth in the back of your jaw? Do you still have your wisdom teeth? Could you have an impaction or abcess in the nearby area that is creating pain that just seems like its coming from your root canaled tooth?
Also, have you considered a qualified endodontist for future root canals? There’s no fucking way I would go back to this dentist a third time (for this job) unless it was free of charge. It doesn’t mean he’s a bad dentist, just that maybe he isn’t the greatest with root canals.
This might be your problem. I had been going to the same dentist since I’ve had teeth, and always hated it and it was always horrible.
I switched to a younger dentist, who immediately impressed me with the level of technology (I DON’T have to bite down on these really huge pieces of cardboard to get x-rays that take 30 minutes to develop?).
The new guy gave me two root canals, on the very back teeth, and I’m saying that there was absolutely no pain during or after the procedure. I’m not saying, that I was manly and I could handle it. I’m saying that I felt absolutely no pain whatsoever.
I opted to lose a tooth instead of get a canal job. The doc tut-tutted a lot, but since I refused to consider his preference, for financial reasons, he went and pulled it. It’s been three years and none of the possible problems ever developed, so I’m happy I did it that way.