Root canal still hurts.. bad

[brookoser]

Boy, am I glad I found this site! I am SO afraid of the dentist, so bad that when I was a teenager I used to pretend I was sick every time my mom would schedule me an appointment Well I went back to the dentist for the first time in about 10 years and was given the unfortunate news that I had to have a tooth pulled and a root canal, and my question is about the root canal..

I guess you could say I only have it, 'partially' done, there is a temporary filling in it (crown comes later I guess?) and it still hurts to bite down on.. however, I expected that. What I didn't expect was to still be grabbing my jaw and experiencing shooting pains when drinking a frozen drink or eating ice cream. Is this normal??? I had it done on Friday 10/12.

Thanks for any advice!!

Brook

 

[coolin]

I have just recently had a root canal and my dentist warned me to expect to be sore for about two weeks. The pain peaked at about day 3/4. By one week I still could not eat anything other than mushy food with that tooth. By two weeks it was fine and I was eating normally with it. I don't remember any pain with really cold things but to be honest I don't eat really cold stuff very often.
Hope that helps a bit

 

[jellyfish]

I have two teeth that were root canaled a year ago....and still are uncomfortable to bite on but look "perfect" on xrays. My endodontist says that this happens sometimes.

I had shooting pain to cold after one of the root canals, and went back to the endodontist to get it tested. They check the tooth with the endo-ice stuff (super-cold swab thing), if it still reacts to cold then there could be a missed canal. In my case, a bite guard was causing the problem and irritating some of the teeth near the root-canaled tooth. You could make an appointment to have it checked with your dentist, don't get the permanent crown attached until you are sure the tooth is ok.

 

[brookoser]

I have two teeth that were root canaled a year ago....and still are uncomfortable to bite on but look "perfect" on xrays. My endodontist says that this happens sometimes.

I had shooting pain to cold after one of the root canals, and went back to the endodontist to get it tested. They check the tooth with the endo-ice stuff (super-cold swab thing), if it still reacts to cold then there could be a missed canal. In my case, a bite guard was causing the problem and irritating some of the teeth near the root-canaled tooth. You could make an appointment to have it checked with your dentist, don't get the permanent crown attached until you are sure the tooth is ok.

He did take an xray when it was done and showed me the xray. Not like I understood any of it but there were what looked like 3 metal prongs, or something similar in below my tooth? Would that be the canals ?

 

[jellyfish]

The canals are tunnels in the teeth where the nerve resides. During the root canal, the dentist uses tiny files to remove all of the nerve from the canals, then they fill the canals with gutta percha (an inert substance made from tree sap!). Some canals can merge or connect sideways or twist around. On on x-ray, they look kind of like tree branches of bright white after they are filled with gutta percha. Some teeth only have one canal (front teeth), other teeth can have up to four or more canals - molars usually have the most canals. Sometimes the canals are hard to find on x-rays or in the tooth, and the dentist may not be able to get all of the nerve out - that is a "missed canal". If some nerve is still left in a canal, the tooth can remain sensitive to hot and cold.

If the dentist suspects a missed canal, they can reopen the tooth and check around, probably with a microscope. This is best done before the permanent crown is attached, or the crown will be damaged during the process. I have read that cone beam CT scans can also show missed canals, but I think that is kind of a last resort? I am not a dentist, so I have no idea.

If you want to read more on the science (and art) of root canals, there is a really great blog by an endodontists office here: http://www.theendoblog.com/ The blog has lots of xrays, scans, and photographs of teeth, including photos taken using the microscope of the inside view - so beware if these pictures would be upsetting.

 

[brookoser]

Thank you so much! This was a lot of help, I will definitely ask the dentist to take a double look at it!