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After abcess and extraction

N

Nogodsnomasters

Junior member
Joined
Apr 10, 2022
Messages
4
Location
Northern ireland
Hi everyone, (sorry if this is long)

2 weeks ago I took a toothache that was quite severe, went to the dentist who xrayed and said I had quite a bad abcess underneath a crowned tooth, he said the infection was beginning to spread to an adjacent tooth mildly also. He advised the abcess tooth would need to be extracted. I was in so much pain and had facial swelling I was crying in the chair and asked him to remove it there and then. He attempted to numb me but couldn't and advised I'd need to start a course of antibiotics to help the infection settle a little so I could be numbed. I took 24hrs worth of antibiotics and returned the following day where thankfully I was able to be numbed this time and the tooth was removed, he drained underneath it and also had to squeeze my gum to release pus.

I finished the 5 day course of antibiotics, I waited 24hrs after extraction and then began salt water rinses for two days, I was petrified of dry socket so I was extremely careful and followed all the rules. The swelling subsided after around 4 days. I'm now 11 days post extraction and feel I should be back to normal surely? The extraction site itself I'm having no problems with, but my gum still feels not right - I want to say numb almost? And my adjacent tooth feels like it has pressure inside it when I bite together with my top teeth, there is no pain but I fear that my abcess actually began the same way with a pressure feeling inside the crown tooth around 2 days before the pain began so I'm highly anxious over the comment he made about the infection being a little in the next tooth, he did say he felt it was minor enough that the antibiotic would clear it up and having the main source drained but this has not been enough to reassure me.

The idea of having to go through that again, the pain, the swelling and further treatments in the chair is making me a bumbling emotional mess. My husband thinks I am worried over nothing as I'm not in actual pain and maybe he's right.

Has anyone been through this who could offer some examples of how it panned out for them? I've had wisdom teeth removed but never had an abcess before so this is all new to me.

Thank you if you made it this far.
 
Hi! While I’m not a dentist I’ve gone through enough extractions that I think you may just need to give your mouth a bit more time to settle down. It’s still healing and quite common to feel pain adjacent to teeth that have been worked on. Obviously don’t let it go too long, but, for now i would think it’s just still part of healing. Good luck, keep us posted.
 
@Scaredbutready thank you for replying so fast. My anxiety over this is sky high. I've just never experienced any adjacent tooth pressure or gum numbness after my wisdom teeth extractions, though I guess I've never had my gum squeezed like that before or that many needles to be numbed, usually just 1 or 2 but this time I had 4 needles on the first attempt and 3 needles the following day all in the same area so I guess that's going to have an affect. Maybe I am expecting too much after 11 days.
 
Hopefully since it was such a painful infection/abcess that’s all it is. Again, you know your body better than anyone so if you don’t have peace about how you’re feeling in a couple days, by all means contact your dentist. I would think anything else would have shown up on your previous xray. I know tooth pain is the absolute worst, so I’m sorry you’re feeling any pain. Hang in there, hope it resolves on its own.
 
Thank you for your kind words. If I feel any true pain rather than just discomfort/pressure I will call the dentist right away to try and avoid losing any more teeth or suffering any further pain, I've never experienced anything like that - I slept 7hrs in 3 days, was so emotional from exhaustion and pain and actually frightened my own child who has autism because of my swollen face, it was horrible.
 
I had a very large abscess in my front tooth. It was touching the tooth next to it as well. I had the tooth extracted and the abscess cleaned. Having an extraction will make the teeth next to the extraction site feel odd for weeks or months. Mine took months before it felt completely normal. The lateral incisor would periodically hurt and have pressure but it eventually did go away.
 
@MountainMama thank you very much for your example of this happening to you. The tooth I had removed is the frontal pre-molar and so the tooth that feels weird is the canine that was beside it, the tooth feels larger or something and as I say when I bite together there seems to be some kind of pressure in it and discomfort but no true pain. I do have a check up booked for the end of this month so as long as it gets no worse I will just attend that appointment and discuss it with the dentist then if it's still not feeling normal.
 
@MountainMama thank you very much for your example of this happening to you. The tooth I had removed is the frontal pre-molar and so the tooth that feels weird is the canine that was beside it, the tooth feels larger or something and as I say when I bite together there seems to be some kind of pressure in it and discomfort but no true pain. I do have a check up booked for the end of this month so as long as it gets no worse I will just attend that appointment and discuss it with the dentist then if it's still not feeling normal.
It is possible that the canine is hitting differently now in the bite, since the premolar isn’t there. The dentist can do some minor adjustments if you have major issues with it by your appointment. It does take some getting used to when a tooth is missing.
 
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