Tooth pain....tell me some stories

[cally]

I'm feeling sorry for myself since I just had my first root canal. My tooth hurts soooooo badly. AND they left a hole in it! I don't like this.

I need to know that others have made it through this. This is a normal thing...right? I'm trying hard to be gratful that I was able to take care of this when too many have to suffer. It's not working so well right now.

[lizziegrace]

1. 14 root canals

due to an undiagnosed cranial nerve disorder. I finally got diagnosed by a resident in endodontics at the dental school. 5 other doctors couldn't tell me why I was losing a tooth a month. ID'ing me by dental records would be no problem at all...

I don't wish root canals on anyone. I hope your pain subsides soon. :hug:

[cally]

3. OMG...OK, I'll quit feeling sorry for myself

I don't know how you managed to deal with that amount of pain. I hope you found a way to treat the disorder. I'm sending you mega :hug: Thanks for the hug.

[lizziegrace]

6. It's okay

I guess it's safe to say I KNOW how you feel. It's truly a miserable existence when your mouth hurts like that. I'm in the middle of another flare-up (this one's been about 7 weeks now.) It's not terminal, but it can feel that way!

:hi:

[cally]

8. I'm truly sorry you have this pain

:hi:

[flamingyouth]

12. Do you have Trigeminal Neuralgia?

I was recently diagnosed with that. Poor you. :(

[lizziegrace]

20. I do!

Atypical. Not the searing pain but the aching kind. Poor you! :(

[TexasLady]

2. allll tops pulled in the course of many years.

Tried savin em, tried fixin em. Dentist told me I got half of mama's great teeth, and half of daddy's bad teeth. Mamma has all of hers, Dad lost his on top at 16. I wound up with a freakin denture by the time I was 40. Got tired of spending the money to save em, be in pain for weeks per tooth, having NO insurance, etc...cheapest route was to just pull the few remaining good teeth and get a really pretty denture.Fits great, looks great, no pain now, and can eat a peanut by gawd!

But tooth pain is a close close second to giving BIRTH to me...no lie.

[cally]

4. Wow...I think tooth pain hurts more

but maybe I forgot the pain of giving birth. I'm glad you are out of pain and that the lower ones are fine. :hug:

[TexasLady]

13. meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee too!

One of my best friends is 82, and he was goin on and on about his NEW rubbery denture(ive seen em, never had em tho!), his NEW and improved sight and getting rid of cataracts, and how his life is just perfect, except for how much he hates bush. I love that man!

[SaveElmer]

5. Abcessed tooth...

Awake all night with excruciating pain...got a lump on my gum above the tooth about the size of a gum drop. Went in, they had to give me extra shots of novacaine to allow it to numb through the abcess, then had to lance it (blood and goop everywhere), and then they pulled the tooth, also bloody. They actually put the tooth in a biohazard bag cause of the infection. Then put me on antibiotics which later gave me the hives!

Luckily it wasn't in front so it is not noticeable

[cally]

7. Ouch!

I had a small abscess, also. You must have been in excruciating pain if it got to the size of a gumdrop. This hurts badly enough now. I'm not feeling so sorry for myself anymore.

[SaveElmer]

9. You know root canals should not hurt that much...

The nerve in the tooth should be dead. I had a couple root canals and they went very smoothly. Do they still have more work to do?

[cally]

10. Yes

Supposedly, the pain should subside by tomorrow. I don't believe them at this point but I hope so. I'll call tomorrow if I'm still in such pain.

[WCGreen]

11. My grandfather was a dentist....

In a small town in PA...

All the other cousins lived in Rural areas....

They had great teeth...

We were from Cleveland....

We would be out in the back yard, screaming fun, rolling down hills, walking the RR tracks, following the creek when he would come pluck us, one at a time....

It was like an old Horror movie...

Where's Michael... He was right here a minute ago....

I remember climbing the flight of stairs to get to his office after I had been plucked from my wild abandon touch of country fun....

The dust hanging in the air like an old movie...

The wavy glass with his name stenciled in with ink....

The door opened and there, right in the open, was the chair...

And he didn't believe in novacaine...

So yea, I hate dentists....

[TexasLady]

14. how poetic, and AWFUL!!!

dayam!

[WCGreen]

31. He didn't mean to be mean.....

It's just the way it was in the company coal mining town...

He was the only dentist for miles around...

I have his old drill, foot pump, that he used in WWI....

I imagine if you saw him coming with that drill you would want to get back to the front ASAP....

[cally]

15. I never had novacaine until recently

My Dad didn't believe in it. I've since had fillings with novacaine and without. I think using novacaine for most fillings hurts more. The Dentists are more careful without it so you have less pain afterwards. For procedures like root canals and extractions, I use novacaine.

[WCGreen]

30. Yea, the high sped drills and laser stuff really negate the

need for the novacaine...

But with the root canal I just had....

Pump it in....

[TexasLady]

32. Made me wanna say..

with that BABY i had...

PUMP it IN! same dad gum thing!

[WCGreen]

33. Pink Peace Sign Umbellas.....

I love it....

[Generator]

16. I had the cops called on me in Brooklyn

many many years ago because I was in so much pain. The lady next door thought I was being tortured to death. I swear to GOD. Two beefy cops-one female one male knock on my door 3amish. The tooth was abscessed and pulled the next day. And it was pulled by a Jewish orthodox dentist in Brooklyn-because it was Sunday and they were the only ones open. I said this is my "cross to bear" and he said we don't say that or something-joking with me. Getting it pulled was nothing compared to the pain.

Oh and root canal-they usually stop hurting the next day. They quiet down a bunch. Getting the decay out is what is supposed to stop the pain. I only had one that really hurt much the next day. GET the drugs. (the hole-yes you will need a crown)

[cally]

17. Ouch...

I'd hate to have to explain to two cops while in so much pain. Hopefully, they understood quickly and left so you go back to moaning.

I'm hoping this feels better tomorrow. I have drugs but they aren't cutting the pain much. I'll call tomorrow if it continues like this tomorrow.

[DemoTex]

18. Two wisdom teeth extracted in Viet Nam. Totally Foxtrot Uniform!

I had an upper and lower on the same side extracted by an Army dentist. Well, not exactly. The Army dentist started the extraction, and then admitted to me that he was fresh out of dental school, and was in way over his head. He called an Air Force oral surgeon, on the other side of the field at Nha Trang, to come finish the extraction. Meanwhile, I bled and ached.

The USAF oral surgeon showed up an hour later and literally took a hammer and chisel to the mess in my mouth. It was so F/U! Tooth shards were gagging me.

Finished, he sent me back to my hooch with APC (the All-Purpose-Capsule) and an antibiotic. It was well into the monsoon season, and everything was wet (clothes, bedding, etc). Around midnight I spiked a fever of about 102-degrees. At about 2 am we had a rocket and mortar attack. I went to the bunker and sat in chest-deep water. The 122-mm rockets' concussions drove the rats from their hidey-holes, so I had rats the size of small cats swimming around me as my fever sizzled in the flooded bunker.

That night was repeated every night for almost a week. I was in the bunker every night, still steaming with fever (but I was NOT going back to that butcher shop!). Finally, my roomy brought me some hot chicken soup from the mess hall. I slurped that down, along with my drugs, and my fever finally broke later that night.

For years after that, dentists told me I needed the other two wisdom teeth out. I'd tell them that I had a bad experience with the first two. They would tell me that everybody does. I'd tell them my story and they would be horrified.

Finally, in 1992, I let an oral surgeon in Washington, DC, extract the remaining two wisdom teeth. It was done with nitrous oxide, IV Valium, and a short-acting IV narcotic. I went home with Percodan. That's the only way to fly!

[tonekat]

24. Now that's a tough act to follow!!

I've heard some horror stories, but that is off the scale! Yikes!

[DemoTex]

27. Dentists agree!

It was awful. Would you believe that I first met the Army dentist in our little 144th Officer's Bar? He was just slumming there. It was right after the book M*A*S*H came out. He was Polish. Fancied himself the "Painless Pole" from M*A*S*H. NOT !!!

[cally]

25. Wow...one of the reasons I posted this thread

is that I knew DUers would have some horror stories. I was feeling sorry for myself and I just knew others here had suffered far worse. I'm glad the second two came out easier.

My second round of vicodin is finally cutting the pain. Thankfully.

[ChoralScholar]

19. I've never been able to eat ice cream

since my permanent teeth came in. My teeth are too sensitive. Sometimes I'll just suffer through it so I can eat an ice cream sandwich or whatever, but mostly not.

[cally]

26. Why don't you let it melt and then slurp it down?

I'm sorry you have such sensitive teeth.

[ChoralScholar]

34. That's sorta what I do....

I can drink milkshakes and such, since it never touches my front teeth, which are the most sensitive.

[AlCzervik]

21. About 20 years ago--oy i'm getting old, my sister and i went to Jamaica

on vacation and on about the 2nd day in she's having a jerk pork sandwich, she take a big bit and something cracked, turned out it was her back molar. ok she is in massive pain and i have nothing to give her and we aren't going home for another 5 days so some of out fellow travelers suggest she starts smoking weed, excellent plan, for me anyhow. Now my sister was 22 at the time and never smoked a joint in her entire life and she really didn't want to then but she was in pain, so i get a huge blunt from the guy next door and light it up, she starts smoking and coughing, dear god she sounded like she had tuberculosis. In about about 5 minutes she is high, way high and that when her asthma kicked in, i forgot she was an asthmatic--doh! Well they finally call a doctor and gave her a shot of adrenaline for the asthma and some codeine for her tooth but basically she spent the rest of the week in pain and we couldn't get an earlier flight back. She ended up having a root canal and a crown.

[TexasLady]

22. bless.her.heart.

i can feel it right now! ow ow ow...but then, how did YOU feel?:D

[AlCzervik]

23. really high.

:evilgrin: and hungry.

[cally]

28. That's awful...

I guess she doesn't have good memories of Jamaica.

[AlCzervik]

29. no she doesn't and i don't have meny memories of it all--

becasue i got high--la de da de da de da

[ScreamingMeemie]

35. cally...I'm so sorry you're going through this.

:hug:

Last week I found out (due to underlying medical causes and the meds I take for them) that I have cavities along the gumline on 28 of my teeth. It hurts to brush...it hurt like heck to get them cleaned. I go every 6 months and this happened in the intervening months. We are playing a "save them as long as they last" game that I'll end up losing. I never had a cavity in my life until the age of 30, when the whole health thing started.

My heart goes out to you. Tooth pain is the worst pain. I am grateful to painkillers but you can't function the day through on them. Feel better soon. :hug:

[cally]

37. I'm truly sorry for all your pain

I think I cracked my teeth during the stress of dealing with breast cancer. I'm very fortuate that I'm past all that and am now well. The pain is gone now. I hope you don't suffer any pain during this process. :hug:

[Minnesota Libra]

36. I'M TRULY SORRY you are experiencing pain and right now I.....

....feel VERY LUCKY because I no longer have to worry about that.

I had the last two very bad teeth out in October and have sink gotten dentures. THANKS TO A MIRACLE WORKER DENTIST O8)I now have dentures that look and feel like my own teeth. In fact I can honestly say they are MY TEETH because my name is literally engraved on each denture. The only issue I face now - absolutely nothing compared to what you face - is talking so my "S" doesn't sound like a whistle.

I will be sending you good - pain free - thoughts!!!! :hug:

[cally]

38. Thanks for the good thoughts

I think I cracked my teeth because during the stress of the past year I got into the bad habbit of clenching my jaw. Luckily, I'm recovered and I don't clench my jaw anymore. I'm fortunate to be facing a much better year. Welcome to DU.

[Richard Steele]

39. I once had a root canal without anesthesia.

To be more precise, I was without anesthesia ONLY in that tooth.

Apparently, the nerve in the tooth had a branch that wasn't supposed to be there;
the doc shot novocaine into every spot his liability insurance allowed,
but it didn't affect whatever odd nerve the thing was connected to
so my entire face was numb EXCEPT FOR THAT TOOTH.

The pain was, of course, exquisite.

The interesting thing: the moment he dug out the last bit of that nerve,
the pain stopped like turning off a light switch. BAM, gone.

I was a bit tense, as you can imagine,
and when that pain stopped, EVERY muscle in my body instantly, totally relaxed,
and I slid out of the chair like 200 pounds of jello.

Peed myself a little. Just a little.

I hope this cheered you up!

[imperial jedi]

40. when I had a root canal

they couldn't numb the tooth even thou they gave me the maximum anesthetic. So the drilled with the tooth "live". The pain was horrible and I still live in fear when I go to the dentist that the anesthetic won't work.

[LSK]

41. Ibuprofen

I had minor pain for a few days after my root canal but the worst is over because the tooths nerve is dead.

[AtomicKitten]

42. pregnancy-induced root canals

While preggers with my two children, my teeth take the brunt of it and both times I required root canal after their respective births. After my son was born, I had the root canal and they sealed it temporarily before finishing. It became infected and throbbed so painfully. My son was in my lap jumping and down and smacked me right in the jaw. I saw stars. Had three subsequent re-do's culminating in me insisting they pull the mo-fo. Wish I had known how much it would cost to remedy that decision, but at the time excruciating pain was the deal-breaker.

Dentistry is the devil's work.