I woke up this morning with my right cheek looking like a chipmunk stocking up for the long winter. I’ve just finished holding an icepack to it while I sipped my coffee. My chubby new profile is the latest installment in the ongoing quandary: Which came first, the sinus infection or the infected tooth?
It started back in February, when a cold settled quickly into a sinus infection, right around the same time as my upper molar began feeling sensitive (if you’ve ever had a sinus infection, you know it’s not uncommon for your teeth to hurt). I’d been traveling a lot by plane, and all the changes in air pressure didn’t help the situation. I ended up spending several days in bed, 
the only bright side of which was reading The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield.
When the antibiotics kicked in, my left sinus immediately cleared (I went through a box of tissues in one day), but my right never did. My tooth still hurt, too, and the uppermost part of my gum was swollen and tender. Two more rounds of antibiotics and nothing had improved. I even saw my chiropractor, who had helped with sinus headaches in the past. No luck. Clearly it was time to seek some more specialized medical advice.
I decided to start with my dentist. She took x-rays and felt the pain was not from an infected tooth but due to my sinus. This particular molar’s root reached right up into the bottom of the sinus cavity. So on I went to the ear-nose-and-throat doctor. After a CT-scan he felt certain the problem was in my tooth, not my sinus. (Would no one claim my pain?) Back to the dentist, more x-rays and a referral to an endodontist. “Yep,” he said, “you need a root canal. This will do the trick.”
Only it didn’t. The tooth pain and swollen gum continued. So he redid the root canal (yes, ’cause the first one was so much fun). No change. Back to the ENT for different CT-scans, which showed the drainage opening in my right sinus was basically non-existent. Surgery to widen the opening would help my sinus drain, hopefully down to the bottom-most area where my tooth’s nerves where being pressured.
So in July I underwent the surgery. It wasn’t too bad, mostly I felt like I had water up my nose for a few days. I was told to give it a month or so and the tooth and gum pain should eventually vanish.
Only it didn’t. So last week I put calls into the ENT, the endodontist and, for good measure, an acupuncturist (hey, maybe I have some blocked energy flow or something, who knows?). The endodontist was the first to return my call and saw me the next day.
“The good news,” he said after taking yet another x-ray, “is that the area of inflammation inside your gum, on the upper tip of the tooth, has reduced in size. But the bad news is, at this rate, it could take more than a year to heal itself.”
Enough was enough, we both agreed. Time to go in surgically through my gum and drill that inflammation out.
That little pleasure was yesterday. Today I sit with a fat cheek and the hope (please, please, please) that after this current surgical soreness vanishes, so will my tooth pain.
Oof. That’s a terrible tale. I hope these desperate measures create some improvement quickly for you!
Oh, Julie! That just really, really stinks. I hope this last procedure did the trick…if for no other reasons, I think you’re running out of specialists to see.
I am having similar problems, di you finally resolve the pain, and how?
Thanks
Jan,
Eventually my tooth cracked when I bit down on a tortilla chip. Upon closer inspection by a dental specialist it was determined that I probably had a hairline fracture all along and that was what had caused my pain! (So I had all that endodontist work for nothing!) The tooth was cracked in such a way that it could not be saved. He had to pull it, and now that it has healed I’ll be getting an implant. When all is said and done, it will have been an 18-month endeavor! Best of luck to you with your tooth – tell them to look closely and see if it is cracked.
Thanks Julie.
They reckon its not cracked but the one in front is.. only that one doesn’t hurt?
One dentist I asked , if it was possible to try to save the tooth but opening it up and putting a lining of Calcium hydroxide or similar and then some antibiotic paste, like ledermix or just some antibitoc in there or injecting some antibiotic into my gums or putting some pellets of antibiotics near the root of that tooth that hurt(which i’;ve read about but no dentists seem to know about)..
anyway the dentist just took out the poulp of the tooth and put some ledermix mixed into a cotton wool pellet in there.
I was disappointed and that night it burnt, right thru to my sinus and even into the bottom of my nose. I blew some blood out of my nose. It felt like my pulp and inside my tooth had been dissolved.
I ouldn’t find anything on the web about ledermix causing this, but this dentists had poked down 2 of the 3 of my roots with a piece of wire. She couldn’t find the other root.
That was 2 weeks ago. I phoned the next day and asked if she was certain it was ledermix paste she had put in there, and why hadnt she mixed with Ca(OH)2 as requested. She said she had done a puplectonomy.. I had wanted a partial pulpotomy. Why are the names so similar??? Sigh
On asking, she said the pulp had looked surprisingly healthy.
A week later , the ledermix antibiotic had worn off, so I went back to a different dentist at the same surgery, and he went in and said there was now NO pulp at all that he could see in the tooth and 3 open roots. So the ledermix paste had dissolved or burnt away the pulp as gfar as can be seen.
He put in a dressing of Calcium hydroxide and a mix of ledermix and Calcium hydrfoxide, and now I defin itely need a root canal.
I’m scared as I know the end of the tooth(apex) is close to the trigeminal nerve, and I really think it was pressure on the trigeminal nerve from an overlong occulsion(ie the tooth was too long and I “hit” in in biting and in an accident it was smashed together. This pushed the tooth, I suspect, up near the nerve..hence the parasthesia(numbness, tingling, inability to open my mouth for 6 mths properly) and pain.
So I’m worried about things like the NaOCl they rinse the rooth canal with leaking out and permanently stuffing the nerve and losing face muscle control etc..
I’d have the tooth pulled only its my only upper molar remaining in my mouth..sigh
So much for wanting to save that tooth.
BTW in root canals, they do weaken the tooth and can in themselves cause fractures of teeth. In some studies up to 6 out of 15 teeth treated with calcium hydroxide fractured within a year!, and many it is just the root canal.
Over 10 years 60% fail?, and in those left only 20% didn’t have infection.
Hence the popularity of implants.
I hear they are great, but dont work well in back teeth, and i’d need a bone implant, and in autimmune people they dont take, and they wont usually do it from what I gather.. hence the need for a root canal?
I find I’m clenching my teeth a real lot now, and its disintegrating my TMJ joints, or it feel slike it.. sigh
Mine is the 16 tooth, but die to a dentist in my childhood extracting teeth, I dont have a 15, or a 17.
I had the upper 6 tooth pulled on the other side, and my cheek has collapsed in and bone resorbed to almost nothing over the 5 years..so that wont work:-)
I had a ‘flipper’ style plate put in for the one tooth, but it speeded up the reabsorption of the bone.. the things one learns with experience!
Thanks for replying, and I wish you the best with your implant. I know the front ones have a 90% success rate, and its improving all the time.