Had a root canal done last wednesday, at the time the dentist commented that my tooth was a bit unusal… anyway, i’m now in agony. Anyone want to regal me with what horror will be visited on me by the NHS emergency dental people tomorrow?

And to think I went private as my NHS dentist said he was good! 400 quid down the drain and 3 days of agony so far 🙁

This wont help you feel better, but I’ve had two root canals done in the last year and had no pain whatsoever from either. All work was carried out on the NHS – Xrays to ensure they had taken all the nerve out etc.

I have had two visits to the dentist in the last 3 weeks to have mine done and you have my sympathy OP.

The first session was okay the day after, but then I felt pain for about 5 days afterwards.

After the second session I was in really bad pain the next day. My tooth was agony and I was struggling to eat anything apart from soup as even the slightest bit of pressure on the temporary filling was agony.

It took a week for the pain to settle down and it is fine now thankfully.

I guess that in my case it was a big molar I had done and so there were 4 roots to find and enlarge and also it was a well filled tooth which meant there was a lot of secondary dentine in the tooth so my dentist had more work to do to open up the canals.

The best thing for pain relief I found was cheap Ibuprofen.

Hope you feel better soon.

I had a root canal go wrong, done by the NHS – they didn’t get it in deep enough so a few years later I had it redone privately which cost £600 about 6 years ago. not had a problem since. both times it didn’t hurt one bit as the tooth was dead.
MTFU.

I have MTFU for last 4 days. Now it feels like someone’s driving over my head. And that’s with pain killers. I’d put the pain as more than when I tore my ear half off, but less than when I ripped my glute and they thought i’d broken my pelivs.

Ow. Ow. Ow.

‘The internet’ is suggesting exciting things from missed root canals, to an infection, to just general inflamation (but then it didn’t really hurt for the first day), to a variety of other fun things. I’m most worried as the dentist remarked that my roots were deeper than they appeared on the Xray so I wonder if he missed a bit…

It’s a big molar at the back left. Ow ow ow.

You have my sympathy, not many things are worse than severe toothache. And to cap it all it’s in your head. That level of pain would be much easier to deal with if it was somewhere like your foot, where at least you could “detach” yourself from it to an extent – in your head you can’t really ignore it.

You’ve only got a few more hours until tomorrow, otherwise I would have suggested phoning an emergency doctor for pain relief. Try to relax the best you can and distract yourself by watching TV or something.

There’s always someone worse off than you…

I’m an Arsenal fan.

How is the pain today?

My latest one is my 4th and I had no pain afterwards with the first 3, but this one has been something else in terms of pain. However, it has settled down, but it certainly took its time after each visit.

Only difference between HHS and private is the cost, had 3 teeth out last year after hitting a tree, and he didnt hurt at all, the pain after was unbelievable, but the pain before was worse, oh and i used NHS, great service and very good dentists.

Ewan,

I think you need to go back and see a pro. My experience is similar to others on here that Root Canal treatment itself was unpleasant/uncomfortable whilst in the chair (but not the worst I’ve had) but didn’t have any significant pain afterwards.

UNlukcy dude,

Just had part one done on a premolar last week. Literally only hurts if i bite down hard on it on purpose (Im stupid…i like to see when things hurt) or suck on it…

Hopefully just the abscess moving all its gunk about.

ibuprofen and booze!

So – status update – as per normal for the last 5 days or so woke up at 4am (4 hours since i last took some diclofenac) the middle of the night in agony. Took some paracetamol and codene stuff and went back to sleep after about 40 minutes or so (when it kicked in).

Then I woke up at about 9am without any (significant) pain. Since then I’ve been trying various things to try and work out what triggers the mental pain (haven’t taken any pain killers since last night). Thus far I’ve eliminated:

– Not lying down – I can wonder around etc – figured the blood has to be at a higher pressure to get to my head if i’m vertical, but doesn’t seem to make much difference.
– Cold (well tap temperature) drinks seem ok
– Warm coffee seems ok – had to have some to get rid of the caffine headache
– Brushing teeth gently seems ok

I’ve still got a banging headache and feel like someones punched me where the tooth is, but it it’s not the insane hammer drill to the face pain…. the only thing i’ve not tried doing is moving the mouth much or eating.

Going to try eating at some point I guess as i’m starting to get hungry! Depending on how that goes I may or may not still go to the emergency dentist…

Any suggestions based on the above why it’d suddenly stop hurting?

reading this and there is an ad for free dental implants including consultancy, hotel and airfare…….LOL!

I did a bit of reading up when I was in pain and discovered that whilst it is true that the root has been removed and in theory you should not feel any pain the procedure can be quite traumatic to the surrounding tissue and this is where the pain comes from.

Maybe the pain from the surrounding tissue has all gone below your pain threshold level?

That’s just a guess by the way.

That’s my current theory. I assume it didn’t go quite as planned*…. the highlights were:

– The roots looked shallow in the xray but were long in practice
– The little metal electronic ‘pipecleaner’ that is shoved down the root to work out exactly how much to ‘file’ away kept giving false readings
– The electric file / drill thing they use to grind away the root ran out of battery half way through, queue dentist going a bit crazy at the dental nurse (apparently they only had one charger as their spare was broken and the other dentist had been using it) – awkward doesn’t even start to describe what I felt! Anyway that added another 30 minutes onto things.
– Quite a bit of full on hacking and pull of the head whilst he sorted out my ‘weird’ tooth and jaw
– And then he used a blow torch and hook thing at the end. Who knows what for. I just shut my eyes!

Seriously it was like something out of Saw 4. Or maybe that bit in the marathon man.

* I really hope that they don’t normally happen like this!

The nerve has died, in a few days time they will be able to whatever they like with the cavity/tooth and you willf eel no pain, thats what my demntist told me and he was RIGHT.

Lots of info here

http://www.dental-health-advice.com/dead-tooth.html

But there isn’t a cavity it’s been filled…. as part of the root canal. Unless, what’s happened is that not all of the nerve was ‘got’ leaving a bit at the end which has been dying off for the past 5 days (didn’t hurt much for the first day). Now completely dead. I assume this is bad as it’ll rot and fester etc, rather than this being a good thing…

Joy.

The worrying thing is that if you subsequently have your tooth crowned and they have not sorted the root out then they would have to drill through the crown because crowns don’t come off once put in place.

Sounds lovely.

Awesome.

Ouch. Going to floss extra thoroughly tonight :-(. Good luck!

The worrying thing is that if you subsequently have your tooth crowned and they have not sorted the root out then they would have to drill through the crown because crowns don’t come off once put in place.

Sounds lovely.

I’ve had this.

Had my two front teeth capped when I was maybe 14. The lad sat next to me in school tried to punch me in the head during double French, I ducked and snapped my two front teeth in half on the desk instead. Happy times. Anyway. The nerve was burned out of one and died of natural causes in the other.

A few years ago, I got an abscess under one of them. Because there was no nerve it didn’t hurt, and because I’m stupid (and was broke) I didn’t get it sorted for months.

When I finally went to the dentist, I’d to have a root canal to drain it. He’d to drill through the back of the cap, then up into the tooth (quite impressive really).

The procedure itself was far from pleasant but it was at least painless due to the nerve being non-existent. The worst thing about the whole thing though was the godawful smell when he drained the abscess, I’ve never known anything like it. It’s obviously not something I’d have first hand experience of, but it’s how I’d imagine an open sewer to smell like if someone had been disposing bodies in it for a couple of years. And it was IN MY MOUTH! Grim as.

Second part of my root canal today. More or less no pain for the week and a half between the initial cleaning and drilling and the return.

Sadly had to have a filling (very deep) on the tooth directly infront of the root canal, and a small one to the molar at the back.

No issue with the molar its fine. The root canal tooth is tender but more so the gum than the tooth. The tooth infront managed to be a bigger job than planned and thus the gums of two teeth beside each other are in pain. Noticed nothing when the anaesthetic wore off, took some neurophen, then decided to make dinner and eat it….worst idea ever. Now in pain. Can feel every heartbeat in my teeth (that could be an awesome song) and its very tender.

Tramil+Neurophen+IPA and I am waiting to pass out to sleep.

^^^^

Ouch!

You have my sympathy.

I am due back to see my dentist next Thursday for some more work. Hopefully all of the traumatic stuff is out of the way as all of the roots of the molar have been cleared and sealed, so now it should be getting the impressions ready for the crown.

Hmm.. I had a wisdom tooth and the tooth infront of it out yesterday as the wisdom tooth had smashed it!!

Not nice!!

Cold sweat on my head thinking about it!!

Ouch

Good luck!