3 WEEKS AFTER ROOT CANAL TOOTH NUMBER 14

[coreysno]

hi i had my upper left tooth pulled its in the back area mostly its tooth number 14 its a big tooth i had root canal done on it in the past and it was good for a while but it started to act up again so i thought i would just pull it for good and get a small bridge there soon but i thought in a few days after i pulled it that the pain would be gone for good but the first 2 weeks was so bad the pain i took alot of pain killers it helped a little and i did the salt water rinse that helped a little to now its week 3 and i am feeling alot better but not completly does anyone know when i will have zero pain in that area this was some experiance and i am glad that it is almost over finaly

[Jerome Tsang, DDS]

Three weeks of pain after an extraction is a bit longer than usual.  If it was a difficult extraction, generally there is more discomfort cause the surgery is more extensive.  Have you gone back to your dentist to see what may be causing your pain?  Its a good sign though that the pain has decreased.  It sounds like it is healing although its a bit slower than one would like.

[coreysno]

hi thanks for getting back to me on this yes i went back to the dentist and he said the area is healing up i finnished the amoxacilin 2 weeks ago it was just a little red the area do you think it was the way it was pulled out why it hurt alot and took longer or because maybe it was from the root canal was starting to fail again

[coreysno]

or do you think i had dry socket or was the roots just really soar

[Jerome Tsang, DDS]

Its possible you had dry socket.  It would take a clinical evaluation to see if you had some bone exposure.  

Also, another complication besides the difficulty of the extraction is that you probably had an infection in your jaw from the failed root canal.  The infection may have been a bit more long standing although the antibiotics should help with that.  Usually it feels much better after the extraction and the area quickly heals.  

Another possibility may you have a bony spicule.  A bony spicule is when after an extraction, the jaw bone is sharp and painful to touch.  So when the gums are depressed, the sharp bone may stab the gums.  These sharp spots go away by themselves as the bone changes/remodels but you can also perform surgery to remove these bony spicules.  

As you can see, there are plenty of possibilities but since your dentist said dry socket, I'd go with that explanation.  

It could also be a combination of all these factors with some contributing more than others.