I have been planning on having my upper teeth extracted and getting dentures for over a year now. New diagnosis of TN and worried how it will affect my dental plans. Has anyone had dentures made AFTER TN dx and how did dentures affect the TN pain? Do they cause more pain or become “triggers”?
Hello there, I can share my grandmother's story. Trigeminal neuralgia is genetic in the women in my family. She had a terrible TN attack the first time, and went to the dentist, and it was in a small town a long time ago when they didn't even use novacaine. She told the dentist to pull a certain tooth that she thought was causing the problem. He pulled it, no anesthetic or numbing, and she was still in terrible pain, so she said "Wrong tooth. Pull the one next to it." He pulled it, and she repeated "Wrong tooth, pull the one next to it." She did this until all the uppers on one side were gone. She was still having insanely bad pain, and so she said "I can't handle this tooth pain. I don't want teeth anymore if they hurt like this. Take all my top teeth." So he did, he just kept pulling, one after the other, no numbing! Then she got false teeth, and for her, they were not a trigger for pain. I think that's because the main trigger for our pain is on the outside of our face. It causes pain in the nose, mouth, ear, etc. but the thing that starts the pain is usually touching or cold or something to do with the outside of the face near the temple.
If you have TMJ syndome, the change in your bite alignment COULD affect face pain. But not so much with TN.
Best wishes to you!
Sheila
Thanks so much for responding. I have been waiting for a long time to have the dentures made. And then this happens. I will be going Monday to get a second dentists opinion. I will post any changes. Again, thanks!
Sheila said:
Hello there, I can share my grandmother’s story. Trigeminal neuralgia is genetic in the women in my family. She had a terrible TN attack the first time, and went to the dentist, and it was in a small town a long time ago when they didn’t even use novacaine. She told the dentist to pull a certain tooth that she thought was causing the problem. He pulled it, no anesthetic or numbing, and she was still in terrible pain, so she said “Wrong tooth. Pull the one next to it.” He pulled it, and she repeated “Wrong tooth, pull the one next to it.” She did this until all the uppers on one side were gone. She was still having insanely bad pain, and so she said “I can’t handle this tooth pain. I don’t want teeth anymore if they hurt like this. Take all my top teeth.” So he did, he just kept pulling, one after the other, no numbing! Then she got false teeth, and for her, they were not a trigger for pain. I think that’s because the main trigger for our pain is on the outside of our face. It causes pain in the nose, mouth, ear, etc. but the thing that starts the pain is usually touching or cold or something to do with the outside of the face near the temple.
If you have TMJ syndome, the change in your bite alignment COULD affect face pain. But not so much with TN.
Best wishes to you!
Sheila
Hey @Donelle_H,
I came to the site to ask the same question you asked, and found that I had commented on your question all of those years ago, and now I’m facing the same situation. Did you get dentures? Do they trigger the TN pain? I am scared silly. I have had 4 teeth pulled and I suffer horribly for months after each extraction, because it also makes my lupus and diabetes flare, making me dangerously ill. So now I am wondering if it will be 8x as bad with getting 8 teeth pulled. Not being negative, but just knowing how my body reacts after extractions is giving me PTSD about this. I hope you’ll see this!
Sheila
You can pull the teeth on affected side and still
Have pain because it’s a vessel in your brain causing the pain not your teeth. Please rethink pulling your teeth you will still have phantom tooth pain. Not a doctor but have experienced what your going through and have had MVD
My Best
Joanne
@tatto20 I think that like me, the first person who posted needed to get dentures for other reasons than TN. I have my dentures now and I haven’t had a bit of problems that I feared until I was sick, for many many years. My grandmother who had teeth pulled didn’t know about TN, she just knew her teeth hurt, and learned later that getting teeth pulled didn’t help.
Best wishes!