Sprained/ Bruised Tooth Ligament

[AmberNectar]

Hello
I have been having ongoing treatment on two front teeth - both have had root canals in the last few months. The second root canal was completed two weeks since but I'm still experiencing pain in the gums which is causing me lots of worry and anxiety. The dentist ruled out any infection and so through self assessment I am suspecting that I have bruised/ sprained tooth. The pain is a constant throb/ ache which is sometimes very mild and sometimes moderate and really feels like there is pain underneath the tooth (nothing like as bad as an abscess). I can't eat on the tooth at all - it almost feels mobile and hurts more if I try to bite with it. Luckily as this is an incisor I'm not needing to use it for biting/ chewing anyway. I sometimes get some referred pain further down the gumline in the next few teeth along too.

I am unable to take ibuprofen due to stomach ulcers so am managing with paracetamol.

My dentist has basically sent me away now, they are not sure why I still have pain and want me to give the teeth time to settle on their own before they will see me again. I haven't mentioned bruised/ sprained ligament to them - mainly because I suspect there is nothing they can do about that anyway. They said there was nothing untoward on the Xrays. I suspect they are not expert in ligament pain and have been doing all they can to ensure the nerves are fully removed from the teeth.

I have had pain with both of these teeth for the last 3 months - the left one was the first to be root canalled and is beginning to settle now but the right one which was done more recently feels a lot worse than the first in terms of throbbing and acheing.

I have read online that sometimes sprained ligaments need help with medication to heal. My question is will this likely heal on its own and if so how long? I feel that I've had constant pain for 3 months and it's like I will never feel back to normal and this frightens me.

Thank you in advance of any answers.
Amber

 

[drm]

If the second root canal was completed two weeks I'm not surprised that you're still experiencing some discomfort in the area. It can take several months for a tooth that has had a root canal to settle down entirely. As you've guessed correctly, there really isn't anything to do other than take it easy on those teeth and let you body heal it.

 

[AmberNectar]

Thank you that very much puts my mind at rest. Almost everyone I speak to is surprised that I am still having pain as their experience of root canals are that they heal almost straight away and it's a long time on to still be having moderate pain! Even the dentist said he wouldn't expect this root canal to take too long to be pain free and I should start eating on it fairly soon so two weeks on I was worrying.

Before this second root canal was started I still had pain from the other tooth that had been done so I'm wondering if the ligaments are somehow linked (maybe not?) and if they were perhaps sore to begin with.

My experience of my own body is however that 1: I have a fairly low pain threshold, particularly for facial type injuries and 2: I seem to take a longer time to heal from things in my mouth! I have had one root canal before which took a long few weeks to settle and eventually needed a couple of courses of antibiotics, plus I get a lot of sinus type pain which affects my teeth on occasion so I wonder if I'm just more susceptible to dental type pain...or maybe more aware of it than others?

Thanks again it's good to know that discomfort can still be expected at this stage. With the first RCT I had to wait 7 weeks for it to settle enough for the final restoration and it still has its twinges even now.