M
MountainMama
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 1, 2018
- Messages
- 2,593
My strange and unusual dental journey (root canal, wisdom tooth, filling and more)
I decided to go ahead and start a journal, in case anyone else ends up having a strange dental experience like mine. Just as a backstory, my fear of dental work stems from a difficult in getting numb, and having to have multiple rounds of shots each procedure, after the dentist "testing" it first.
I had my impacted wisdom teeth removed in my late teens (and I had two extra tooth buds that they extracted). I also had braces and oral surgery accompanying the braces. As a young adult, in my 20's, I ended up having several of my molars need fillings. Then I had many blissful years where I had no issues with my teeth.
About five years ago, in my early 30's, I bit down on a potato chip and broke my last upper left molar...not badly, just broke off part of it. I went to the dentist, and he decided to just do a filling, instead of a crown. That was my first mistake, that set off this entire journey.
Two years after he did the filling, we moved. I saw a new dentist for a cleaning, and they mentioned that the molar needed a crown, or it would likely crack, and I'd need a root canal. That terrified me, so I went ahead and had them do the prep work for a crown. They took impressions. When the crown came in, it didn't quite fit, and instead of re-ordering it, they just stuck it on. I had never had one before and had no idea how it was supposed to fit. It did not meet my gumline, and they couldn't get it to the correct bite with my bottom tooth. They ground on the crown (which I have later learned was not the correct thing to do), and ended up grinding down my bottom molar under it to make it fit. I never had any pain with any of that.
This year (four years after the crown was placed), at a new dentist, the dentist found decay under the crown on the x-ray. She removed the crown, and the decay, and replaced the filling, and put on a temp crown. She told me that the filling was really deep and that it was possible that the root would become infected, needing a root canal!
Two weeks later, the tooth started hurting, mostly just twinges here and there, but accompanied by tingling all along my upper jaw, radiating to my lower jaw. I called, she gave me a prescription for antibiotics, and referred me to and endodontist. This is where my journey starts.
I decided to go ahead and start a journal, in case anyone else ends up having a strange dental experience like mine. Just as a backstory, my fear of dental work stems from a difficult in getting numb, and having to have multiple rounds of shots each procedure, after the dentist "testing" it first.
I had my impacted wisdom teeth removed in my late teens (and I had two extra tooth buds that they extracted). I also had braces and oral surgery accompanying the braces. As a young adult, in my 20's, I ended up having several of my molars need fillings. Then I had many blissful years where I had no issues with my teeth.
About five years ago, in my early 30's, I bit down on a potato chip and broke my last upper left molar...not badly, just broke off part of it. I went to the dentist, and he decided to just do a filling, instead of a crown. That was my first mistake, that set off this entire journey.
Two years after he did the filling, we moved. I saw a new dentist for a cleaning, and they mentioned that the molar needed a crown, or it would likely crack, and I'd need a root canal. That terrified me, so I went ahead and had them do the prep work for a crown. They took impressions. When the crown came in, it didn't quite fit, and instead of re-ordering it, they just stuck it on. I had never had one before and had no idea how it was supposed to fit. It did not meet my gumline, and they couldn't get it to the correct bite with my bottom tooth. They ground on the crown (which I have later learned was not the correct thing to do), and ended up grinding down my bottom molar under it to make it fit. I never had any pain with any of that.
This year (four years after the crown was placed), at a new dentist, the dentist found decay under the crown on the x-ray. She removed the crown, and the decay, and replaced the filling, and put on a temp crown. She told me that the filling was really deep and that it was possible that the root would become infected, needing a root canal!
Two weeks later, the tooth started hurting, mostly just twinges here and there, but accompanied by tingling all along my upper jaw, radiating to my lower jaw. I called, she gave me a prescription for antibiotics, and referred me to and endodontist. This is where my journey starts.