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Questions About Infection & Overall Health

Catie McBain

Catie McBain

Member
Joined
Nov 13, 2020
Messages
86
Location
Northern California
Anytime I read about dental infections on this forum, it's usually the same thing. I read the professional replies and they say the infections usually don't spread, they usually don't become severe, they die off quickly because the immune system fights them off.

Well, here's my story.

Back in November of last year, I developed an infection in my wisdom teeth. I only have two, one on the bottom left and one on the top right. They came in normally and have plenty of room so they've never bothered me until recently. The crown broke off the left one a couple months ago, and the right one crumbled away to nothing, so I've only got roots left.

When I first started having symptoms, I didn't think much about it because it was mostly just an intermittent toothache. There was a moderate amount of pain, but it was nothing I couldn't tolerate. Then, after about a week, I started feeling feverish. I had trouble breathing, like my breathing was slow and labored. I had tightness in my chest, my heart rate was faster, and I started feeling out of it. Like my thoughts were slowed, I was sluggish mentally. Couldn't think too clearly or quickly. And, on top of that, I developed horrible stomach pain and nausea. I think that might have been due to the infection draining into my mouth and down into my stomach. And I just felt absolutely awful, all over my entire body. Just miserable, like something was really wrong.

When I got to the doctor, he gave me antibiotics, and within an hour or so after taking the first dose it started getting easier to breathe. Gradually I started breathing better, easier. It was the same way each time the infection came back. I would lay in bed, struggling for breath, and it wasn't until I started the antibiotics that I could breathe better.

So my question is did the infection spread and cause me to have these symptoms? I'm afraid of the infection spreading to my heart and lungs, or possibly developing sepsis. My wisdom tooth on the left side drains easily enough, though. Because when the crown broke off, it left a big hole in my gums that occasionally fills with pus and needs to be cleaned out. And I've heard that, supposedly, as long as it drains it doesn't get into your bloodstream and cause sepsis. But I don't know how much of that is true, so I thought I'd post here and ask.

Funny thing is, I saw my regular doctor today, and he doesn't seem to think it's a big deal. He acted like I don't even need to have my wisdom teeth removed because I'm not having any pain or symptoms right now. I know there's a bad taste and smell coming from that tooth on the left. That's the worst one. The one on the right rarely bothers me, and when it does, it's mild in comparison to the problems the other one gives me. But should I be concerned about this? Is this infection spreading quickly when it comes on? And if so, what're the chances that it'll keep spreading and get worse?

I'm honestly too afraid to have anything done about this right now. And I was told I couldn't have a consultation until April anyway. I'm trying to take good care of myself, eating well and taking vitamins and a lot of garlic, hoping it'll at least keep the infection from getting too severe if/when it comes back. For a while I feared that the infection would kill me, but I'm also afraid that the procedure could kill me due to my family's history of having negative reactions to anesthetic. So it's like I'm stuck here, just looking for some answers and advice.
 
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Dental infections in healthy people in the West don't cause sepsis, they can't "spread" into your other organs and they generally don't cause any major systemic issues.

The biggest risk to general health from a dental infection is if the swelling locally causes the airway to be obstructed, thus making breathing difficult.

A negative reaction to which anaesthetic? There are so many different types available that it should be simple to avoid the ones which cause problems.
 
In my experience, although the infection doesn’t spread and cause severe health issues, it made me just feel generally unwell as you said you were feeling.
I had an abscess that was undetected for a few years as it wasn’t hurting. It did not drain and caused a lot of bone loss. I never had a fever or swelling but I was constantly tired and had a lot of colds and illnesses during those few years. I even got the flu one year, even with a flu shot. My immune system just couldn’t keep up. I was never in danger of dying or getting sepsis but I didn’t even realize how bad I had felt until the tooth was extracted and the infection cleaned out. I felt amazing after that and had so much energy!
 
@Gordon

Thank you for your reply. It helps ease my mind, because I've already had heart problems in the past (viral infection that cleared up several years ago, and an irregular heartbeat which is easily controlled with medication), so my biggest concern was having the infection spread and effect my heart. But if you say it won't, then I believe you.

As an answer to your question about the anesthetic (and I'm so glad you brought this up because this is something else I'd like to discuss), I'm talking about general anesthesia, the kind you breathe through a mask that makes you unconscious for a procedure, not the kind given through an IV. It's the only way I can have this done due my severe panic attacks and needle phobia. I was even told by an oral surgeon and my regular dentist that it had to be done this way, because their sedatives in pill form weren't enough to keep me from crying, screaming and basically going hysterical.

But the thing is my mother and grandmother had minor surgeries when they were younger, and the doctors and nurses all panicked because they had such difficulty waking them up after the surgery. I remember my mother telling me how they had pulled her hospital bed away from the wall and out into the middle of the room, and that she was surrounded by doctors and nurses all in an uproar because it's like my mother was practically comatose and they couldn't revive her for a very long time. Same thing happened with my grandmother, and they both were given inhaled general anesthesia through a mask.

In my family we're all very sensitive to medications. We have to take children's dosages of everything. Same with me. For my allergies I take the lowest dosage of children's Benadryl. So add that to my family's history of problems with anesthesia and I keep thinking that even the lowest dosage might mean that I'll never wake up. So if I ever get the courage to have this done, I'm afraid that if I tell them about my family's history with anesthesia, then they won't let me do it that way. Which essentially means no treatment at all.

@MountainMama

Thank you for your reply.

It's interesting that you mention being tired and sick a lot. Normally I'm in good health and very rarely do I ever get sick. Usually I'll have a cold one every few years. But about a month after the crown broke off my wisdom tooth, I started getting sick more often. I'm also very tired nowadays. Very tired and run down, like all I want to do is sleep.

I was feeling like I had a bad cold in September. That lasted about a week and a half. Then it came back with similar symptoms after about a week, and I was all congested and miserable. It cleared up for about a month, but there were days when I felt exhausted. Then the infections started in November, then they cleared up after three rounds of antibiotics, and now I feel like I have a very mild cold again. Just some sinus pain/congestion and a slight sore throat. Of course, that could just be my allergies. Wouldn't be surprised if that were the case. But still, it make me wonder. ?
 
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I'm not an expert on GA but I do have a son who's an anaesthetist.

However what stands out to me is the fact that your elders had GA a while ago. There was a real sea change in anaesthetic gasses in about the early 90s, when they switched from the old Halothane groups to a new one called Sevofluorane, this was great news for me, since Halothane used to give me a splitting headache after work, Sevo doesn't :)

They also used to use stuff called Brevital to do the initial anaesthetic, again this was dropped in the early 90s and replaced with much safer stuff called Propofol.

The new drugs are massively better, with far fewer side effects and a much higher margin of safety.

Any GA you're likely to be getting will be done using those agents, so your prior experiences don't have a direct bearing any more.

It's also possible to have treatment with IV sedation rather than pills, that allows much more accurate dosing to be given and in my hands worked absolutely fine for about 99% of all patients who we used it for.
 
Gosh, thank you so much for that. And it was a really long time ago that my mother and grandmother had surgery. Like, a good fifty years ago before I was ever born. It's just that the last person who told me GA is safer nowadays is a close friend of mine, and I know she means well and is only trying to make me feel better, but I thought posting here to ask someone in the field would be better.

Unfortunately, IV sedation isn't really something I can do. That's why they were trying to give me sedatives in pill form, because they were going to use IV sedation and they needed to calm me down before they could put the IV in. But it didn't work. I was screaming, shaking and just flat out crying hysterically to the point where they couldn't even get near me. The oral surgeon walked out and left me with his assistant, who tried for a good twenty minutes to calm me down. When that didn't work, they referred me a place that does GA in an operating room through a mask, because they couldn't sedate me to do treatment in the office.

I've been through this a number of times at different places. I scream, I cry, I hyperventilate, I throw up, I come close to passing out, everything. Because of this, I recently got a note from my doctor saying that it's medically necessary for this to be done in a hospital with GA through a mask. It is good hearing that it is safer nowadays, though I honestly don't know if I can ever bring myself to do it.

But I do want to thank you. Sincerely, I do. I probably shouldn't worry so much. I guess part of it is just fear of the unknown because I've never been through anything like this before.
 
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Might have been an even earlier GA agent than Halothane then if it was that long ago :)

The good news is that gas induction (the proper term for giving GA with a mask) is much much better with the new GA gasses, they work far more quickly and don't produce all the panicky feelings that Halothane did.
There was a story going around the hospital I worked in about an anaesthetist who scoffed at how effective the new stuff was. He determined to prove that it wasn't any better than the old stuff by sniffing it out of the bottle.

After he came round he had to change his mind :)

My only problem with it was that it smelled of wet fur coats, which always made me think of my aunties coming to visit when I was little :)
 
It's really comforting to talk to an expert here. I feel like I don't have to worry so much now. But I'm returning to this topic with a nagging question: why do all these medical websites say that tooth infections will spread to other parts of the body when they don't actually do that?

Obviously you're in this business, so you know what you're talking about. I think that's what scared my friend (and maybe it scared me too a little) was that she told me how she was looking things up online, and then proceeds to tell me how it'll get worse and start spreading to other places.

My friends all tell me the same thing. One person said it'll spread to my brain, another told me about how her friend ended up in the hospital because it was spreading to her brain. I know that sometimes, when my busted wisdom tooth on the upper right side hurts, it'll give me a sinus headache. It's always mild and only lasts a few hours though. So I figured maybe it was just the pain radiating outwards instead of the infection spreading anywhere (yes, this is me trying to convince myself that my symptoms aren't as serious as my friends lead me to believe).

But it makes me curious. I don't know why my friends and all these websites say it will spread when it actually doesn't. Maybe it's because they don't have the knowledge, training and experience that you do. ❤
 
What's the saying? Bad news sells.

I've seen people with absolutely horrific abscesses which have gone on for years without any systemic issues, I'm sure many of the dentists on here have also. We're talking people with serious drug issues, the homeless and some phobics who just can't bring themselves to go to a dentist to get help. But they NEVER have any brain abscesses or whatever elsewhere.

In third world countries there might be an issue, the patients will have considerably reduced resistance to infection due to poor nutrition and they can't afford to get treatment at all. In a developed country you'd go and get antibiotics before it got that bad.
You've also got the high incidence of HIV etc in Africa which makes any infections much worse.

Your sinus headache is more likely caused by stress about the tooth than anything else.
 
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