Ongoing cracked tooth/root canal concern

[toraflora]

Hello~ I hope everyone is well during these hard times. So sorry this is a bit long, but I really need some help/advice.

I've had a cracked tooth & root canal concern for around a year now (have posted here before about it). For context, I bit hard into a cherry pit (enough to crack the pit open) on my #13 (canine) and #14. At first, the teeth were quite sensitive when I ate fruit or anything of that matter, but for the past few months, I haven't really felt much as I started eating just on the other side of my mouth. This concern bothered me for the longest time and I went to countless dentists (even one international when I was on vacation), and none of them confirmed anything. They said they can't see any obvious crack, and I even went to an endodontist who did my molar root canal 4 years ago, and after looking with some microscope equipment/did a sensitivity test, he said there wasn't really anything he could see. I got over 5 xrays done with different dentists and none of them could see anything either.

Fast forward to recently, I didn't really receive any pain that was unbearable, but sometimes it would be a bit more uncomfortable than others (maybe I accidentally bit on it when eating or something). However, just today, the canine #13 had on-and-off pain, especially when I applied air to it when I breathe in. When I wear my retainers (to keep teeth in place after braces), pain and discomfort are pretty much gone, which I found to be the case this entire time.

This concern has been affecting me a LOT because I really do not want a root canal. I'm only 19 years old and have already had a root canal. My endodontist said that getting root canals at a young age is unhealthy, and previously, I did a lot of searching and found that there's a possibility that root canals cause long-term health issues, like cancers and auto-immune disease (there have also been scientific papers/studies written about it? why??). I've read on the reasoning behind why it might be (feel free to ask as I feel like going into detail will make this long), but I don't know for a cracked tooth if there are any alternatives if my dentist couldn't even locate the crack in the first place.

I just find it weird how a retainer eased the pain and I have so much uncertainty that's been eating away at me for the past year and really affecting my day-to-day activities and mental health. I also feel like I can't go to the dentist now because of 1) covid and everything going on, and 2) I went to the dentist many many times last year to get an answer about this "cracked tooth" and got the same, uncertain answer everytime - my parents will not let me waste more time and money.


Thanks so much for reading all this and any help/advice is much appreciated

 

[Gordon]

The fact that the pain isn't there when you have your retainer in would suggest that it's caused by something in your bite being off. This can easily happen after orthodontic treatment, the teeth can drift a little bit back to their original positions if they get the chance.

You haven't read any scientific papers on root canals causing cancers and auto immune disease because there simply isn't any evidence that it does. It's simply nonsense.

 

[toraflora]

@Gordon thank you so much for your reply!

I got my braces off around 4-5 years ago, and after encountering the injuring my teeth on a cherry pit incident, I've been getting spontaneous pains and have stopped eating/chewing on the side of those teeth. Those teeth definitely feel weaker compared to my others. It used to be very sensitive/mild dull pain here and there, but lately I've been getting slightly sharper spontaneous pain from it, especially when air is applied.

I just wished there was a way to fix this pain, and if it is cracked, if there are alternatives to root canals to ease my anxiety worst part is my dentists previously couldn't see anything wrong, so if pain persists, they would just default to root canal. It just pains me to think that I'm only 19 and already having 3 root canals would not be ideal, and my endodontist previously said it's "not healthy" either.

Once again, thank you so much for taking the time to read this and provide advice -- really appreciate every bit of information

 

[Gordon]

It's unlikely that a crack wouldn't have progressed to give much more pain after this length of time.
They generally don't happen in canine teeth either, since they are the strongest teeth in the arch. It would be worth asking a good general dentist to take a look and assess the bite in general, along with some x-rays and electric pulp testing of the affected area.

 

[toraflora]

@Gordon
thanks so much for your responses -- truly! It's been exactly 1 year since I injured my tooth on the cherry pit, and I went to multiple dentists and had over 6 x-rays, all of which were inconclusive. I've also been completely avoiding using the two affected teeth for the past year, so could that be a reason why it didn't get worse?
really sorry if I seem clueless here, I'm just so anxious and lost after wasting my entire family's flexible spending last year to get check-ups on this and still had no answers

 

[Gordon]

Nope, whether you used them or not isn't relevant, teeth always come into contact during chewing, whether there's food in between them or not.

 

[Brendbaby]

@toraflora I am going through the same thing after biting down hard on a popcorn kernel. Did they ever find anything wrong with the tooth? Did you need to get on medication? I’m in so much pain. They can’t find anything wrong with the tooth but it started after me biting on a popcorn kernel. I’m losing hope and going to start taking nerve medication to see if I can get relief. How are you now?