I had an accident that resulted in a facial injury, a broken rib, as well as fracturing two of my front teeth. I first went to the ER. The next day, I went to the dentist who wanted to wait a couple of weeks for things to settle down. I was in a ton of pain with my rib and face anyway. When I went in, I was not in any pain but the right front tooth had started to turn darker. The dentist said that he only felt dried blood so I wouldn’t need a root canal treatment, just crowns for the fractured teeth. A few months later, I was in severe pain and scheduled an emergency appointment. He said I now needed a root canal treatment. He wrote me a five day prescription for amoxicillin and had me return in a week to finish out the root canal. When I first started taking the medicine I felt relief from some of the pain after the first day, but it returned a couple of days later. Even after the root canal, the pain did not cease. I went back and he decided to root canal the front tooth next to it because he couldn’t understand why there was still pain. Still no pain relief after the second root canal. My guess is that one wasn’t necessary, but maybe it was and there’s an additional problem. Should I just extract these two teeth and get implants?
Desiree
Dear Desiree,
The first thing I am going to say is that you need a new dentist. When you first went in and there was dried blood, that was an obvious sign that you needed a root canal treatment. Had they done it then, it would have been a much simpler treatment because there would have been no infection to deal with. You could very likely have avoided the emergency dental appointment.
A second issue comes when he did do the tooth infection. You said he gave you amoxicillin for five days and then finished the root canal seven days later. First, that wouldn’t be the best drug for that, but the bigger issue is that he let the medicine run out before doing the rest of the treatment. This essentially allowed the infection to flare back up and then he trapped it in there. It makes no sense to me. He should have given you enough antibiotic, preferably something like Clindamycin, to get you to several days after the treatment.
I would not extract these teeth yet. I’d like you to see a root canal specialist (an endodontist). Call and tell them what you’ve just told me. They may still be able to save your teeth. If not, then dental implants are the best tooth replacements. Let’s not jump there yet. It may still be possible to save your teeth.
This blog is brought to you by Lexington, KY Dentist Dr. James Williams.
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