Hello all,
My name is Mike, I'm 31 years old, living in New York.
I recently discovered this forum while researching some symptoms I have had over the past year and a half. I was hoping by sharing my story I could get some advice from others.
- In March 2013, I had some pain in my lower left first molar. I saw a new dentist as I had recently moved and he said it needed a root canal. While attempting to perform the root canal I was in constant pain from him hitting the nerve and he had to keep stopping to give me more anesthetic. It was so bad I was shaking. He eventually conceded that I needed to go see an Endodontist.
- I went the next day to the Endodontist he recommended and she said the tooth was infected by what the dentist had done yesterday and I needed to take an antibiotic and come back and see her in a week.
- The Endodontist performed the root canal a week later and at one point gave me anesthetic directly into the tooth to prevent what had happened last time with the dentist.
- Now before I had this root canal I had never really had any pain in my teeth. Since then I've found that all of my 1st molars go through fits of pain that comes and goes.
- In September 2013, the pain in my lower right first molar was so bad I went to a different dentist and he performed a root canal on that one. So now I had both bottom 1st molars with root canals and crowns.
- Since then the upper left first molar has been in pain on and off but this dentist can never find anything wrong with it, based on x-rays and his evaluation. He suggested the tooth goes deep into my sinus cavity and that could be the problem.
- I saw an ENT last November who did an evaluation of my sinus and did not believe it was causing the tooth pain.
- As you can imagine I've been in a constant state of worry, why are all my teeth failing me? I was convinced the upper left first molar was fractured. But the dentist could find no evidence of it.
- In July 2014 the pain started acting up ag
- In October 2014 I developed a horrible taste in my mouth every time I swallowed.
- Then on November 6th, 2014 I was eating when I felt a horrible pain near the upper left first molar. I couldn't touch it with my finger. So I went to the dentist thinking that tooth had finally fractured. Instead it was the upper left 2nd molar, the one right behind it, where a piece had broken off. He repaired it with a filling.
**Now this is where things have gone really down hill....
- Since he performed that restoration on upper left 2nd molar, the upper left 1st molar has been in a constant state of pain during the day (it doesn't hurt during sleep and generally starts hurting after lunch). It's not an excruciating pain. Just dull and goes through different sensations - throbbing, burning, tingling, squeezing, feeling heavy..no amount of ibuprofein makes any difference. This all happened immediately after the Novocaine wore off on the tooth restoration that night. Other symptoms I developed were a very sore cheek on that side (couldn't sleep on it) and sore lymph nodes at times. They didn't look different but felt swollen. Today would be day 15 and it's the same thing every day, never lets up. The only odd thing is that maybe 10% of the time the pain switches to the molar on the opposite side of my face (upper right 1st molar). Sometimes moving my head certain ways makes it hurt more. In the past 2 weeks I have seen numerous different doctors trying to get this pain to stop.
- I went back to the dentist twice since then and he suggests we can do a root canal but he really does not think it's the tooth. X-ray shows nothing wrong with it, it's not sensitive to hot or cold. He gave me amoxicillin to take for 7 days and on day 2 the bad taste went away in my mouth that had been lingering for weeks. I had thought the bad taste may be related to a tooth abscess. However I finished the amoxicillin 3 days ago and the tooth still hurts every day.
- So I decided to see a different Endodontist. She did a pandormaic x-ray of my mouth and also could not find any solid evidence that the tooth was fractured or abcessed.
- Then I went to a different ENT who did nasal endoscopy and found nothing, He suggested a Catscan of the sinus to be extra certain but I do not have any other sinus infection symptoms.
- That's when I discovered TN/ATN by researching online. So yesterday I went to see a neurologist. She did not think it was ATN/TN because she says it would be more of a shooting pain than constant ache, it's not bilateral (I mentioned it sometimes hurts on the opposide side molar), and wouldn't be isolated to one tooth. She did a basic neurological exam that showed no problems. She suggested a MRI of the brain to check if anything is compressing the nerve. She also precribed me carbamazepine.
So, my plan is to go for the brain MRI this week.But I haven't taken the medicine yet because I'm scared.
I'm very worried, depressed and in a constant state of pain. Looking for advice from anyone who has had similar symptoms.
Thanks for taking the time to read my story.
Mike