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Tooth “went bad” and had to be pulled

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Tooth “went bad” and had to be pulled, Was My Dentist Negligent?

Please, dental professionals reply to this query. Smart alec answers will be reported.
Up until this nightmare of having to have a tooth pulled, I have had perfect teeth. I am fifty-something in age and have no fillings, never even had to visit a periodontist. All dentists have had to do is “sandblast” the tea stains and scrape a little bit of plaque. So what happened to me this month was a total shock.
About 18 -20 months ago I began having painful “zings” in tooth #31. I told my dentist about the problem and all he told me to do was use sensitive tooth toothpaste. The zings would come and go and happen when I would even eat very soft food. Every visit I would tell him the painful zings continued.

X-Rays were taken, and everything looked normal. He had me bite down on something he called a “tooth sleuth” and my tooth did not “zing” me with pain. At my last visit in October he again had me bite on the “tooth sleuth” and my tooth did not hurt.

Around Christmas time the occasional “zing” became almost chronic jaw and facial pain, and on January 6th, I visited him again. He x-rayed the tooth area and said “root canal”. WHAT?

The endodontist examined my tooth with his microscope and took a pano of my jaw area and declared the tooth could not be saved.

Having never had to deal with dental problems beyond the routine I was shocked.

Was my regular dentist negligent in brushing off my original complaints?

I am thinking of finding a new dentist because of this nightmare.

Best Answer

The only reason an endodontist could not save a tooth like yours is if it had a severe vertical fracture in it that, even with the root canal done, would not be able to work. These fractures are almost impossible to find especially with an x-ray. A tooth sleuth is helpful in many cases but still will not pick up a fracture 100% of the time. When you saw your dentist in January, the tooth must have died over time and infection was seen on the x-ray and you were referred to an endodontist. It sounds like once he got in there and saw with the microscope, how badly the tooth had cracked he told you that it could not be saved. I feel for you but the diagnosis of these are one of the hardest things to diagnose and even if it was detected earlier, most likely it was not going to be treatable. So I don’t really blame your dentist. You will most likely need an implant to replace the tooth. Good luck.

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Thank you. I’m still healing from the extraction. Hearing the same thing from several other dental professionals has made this nightmare more bearable.

January 25, 2010 · Tagged with

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