Cavity likely to progress to infection in 3 days?

[JcMac]

No spontaneous pain, no cold sensitivity, a bit of pain upon percussion.

Scheduled endodontist for Tuesday, but not sure if I should go to emergency dentist now instead. I've had some bad experiences with generalists, and I specially fear a sodium hypochlorite incident, which although rare is really bad,and the generalists in the emergency clinic never use a rubber dam.

is the tiny "line" that extends from the "ball" into the pulp also cavity,or just the "ball"?

 

[Dr M]

I would not recommend that you do a root canal treatment until there are some more boxes that have been checked. Wait until there is some spontaneous pain or lingering pain with hot and cold stimuli. I think there is a cavity noted on your canine, but the pre-molar and canine both have fillings that might need to be adjusted to get rid of the percussion pain. Fillings that are too high, could lead to some PDL trauma, which might lead to a percussion sensitive tooth. Start there and see if the pain persists.

 

[JcMac]

I would not recommend that you do a root canal treatment until there are some more boxes that have been checked. Wait until there is some spontaneous pain or lingering pain with hot and cold stimuli. I think there is a cavity noted on your canine, but the pre-molar and canine both have fillings that might need to be adjusted to get rid of the percussion pain. Fillings that are too high, could lead to some PDL trauma, which might lead to a percussion sensitive tooth. Start there and see if the pain persists.

I did a root canal yesterday (cavity was really close to the nerve on apical x-ray so I just went with it, because on previous cases it never gets good with just a filling and always end up needing RCT anywa), and the tooth as well as one of the adjacent teeth is still numb. I've tested the adjacent one with cold, with ice cubes, and it can feel the cold a bit, but only upon prolonged contact, and it's much different from my other teeth (the other tooth after that one is also a bit numb but not as much).

Is this dangerous? Is it urgent? I have an appointment tomorrow with another dentist, can I wait, or should I go to the emergency clinic today?

The nerve was a bit inflamed and it required direct anesthesia in it, but I think I had also had that before and didn't cause this.

No anesthesia injections hurt, or anything in the procedure except opening up the tooth and anesthesizing the nerve (normal I think, cause it was inflamed).

 

[Dr M]

I don't think this is an emergency. I think it might just be a prolonged effect of the local anaesthesia. Do you have any x-rays that you could share after the root canal has been started?

 

[JcMac]

I don't think this is an emergency. I think it might just be a prolonged effect of the local anaesthesia. Do you have any x-rays that you could share after the root canal has been started?

No, but I went to another dentist today, and he took an x-ray, said it was everything ok. Ofc, x-rays can't detect nerve damage though, only things that might have caused it, right (but not all).

He said it was unlikely to be nerve damage since I have no other symptoms, and only 2 teeth are numb, not anywhere else (gum, face).

But I'm still a bit worried because this never happened to me before in many RCTs, because the dentist despite being an endodontist with a microscope was a bit in a rush, and because it's been 48h and the sensation is still pretty much the same.

Have you ever seen nerve damage with only the teeth being numb, no other tissues involved?

The tooth is an upper canine btw. Also hard to mess up in these terms, I guess.

 

[Dr M]

I have never seen nerve damage with only the teeth being numb. Usually it is the teeth and the surrounding tissues.