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Differing opinions on xray creating anxiety

B

blu

Junior member
Joined
Mar 5, 2022
Messages
3
Location
uk
Hi, I' new to this forum. I had a bad experience with wisdom teeth extraction when I was younger, reacted to the strong antibiotics and was knocked out for ages. Now I had a porcelain fused crown fitted on 1st upper molar, which never settled 100%, and bit on something hard in December and had pain on biting. Took amoxillian from the dentist and the biting pain has subsided but there is now swelling around the gum. I'm assuming an abscess, though no head. My NHS dentist advised more antibiotics, ciprofloxin, which I was just too scared to take due to previous bad experience.

I paid for a second opinion who took an xray and said it needs root canal and the crown behind is also decaying so I would need 2 crowns. He pointed to the infection being between molar 1 and 2.

I showed the xray to my usual dentist who says best thing is to extract the tooth. He says he can see a crack in molar 2 and sees infection between molar 1 and tooth in front. I'm utterly confused as it seems like they have totally differing views of the xray.

I'm tending to just pulling it as then the problem would be solved, and I'm not keen on the root canal failing and having this constant anxiety if its infected or not. However further to this I started googling about sinus perferation as I have bad sinus issues on this left side, possibly caused by the tooth or a deviated septum. I've even had a camera check this sinus in panic last month, they said nothing bad.

I'm actually not really functioning by now in worry about making the wrong decision. Is this normal to have such differing views on an xray? Is there anyone here who can tell me what they think about the xray?
 
This is a photo of the xray
 

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Not terribly impressed with the first dentist, straight to the prescription pad without even taking an x-ray is pretty poor.

Go with the 2nd guy. Who is quite right about decay.

The molar is nowhere near your sinus on the x-ray, even if it was, sinus perforations due to extractions are literally nothing to worry about.
 
Thank you Gordon, I really appreciate your input regarding the distance to sinus especially. That's really helped my anxiety.

Just to add dentist 1 who is NHS had x-rayed but said he couldn't see a crack on his xray, and this digital xray was better. Though I still think antibiotics was a really poor choice.

So do you think best way to go is an extraction on the second molar from the back? Or should I pay the £700 for a root canal. I'm worried if the back tooth is decaying and I lose that as well I'll have no upper molars on that side at all :( The private dentist 2nd guy reckoned the only advantage of extraction would be I might save the back molar as no food it would be freer to access to clean up. If I get that crown replaced I can't imagine that will be an easy job without it possibly dying in the process.
 
I think it's a very compromised tooth, it'll need a new crown as well as the root canal doing to salvage it, so you're getting very close to the cost of extraction followed by an implant, which is probably likely to work better.
 
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