tooth abcess/jaw cyst???

[saralou]

hi
i've been having lots of toothache/facepain for about 3 months now. it started about 3 months ago with a simple replacement white filling due to an old filling decaying. i've been back and fo dentist and even changed dentist to a more experianced one who took filling out and replaced it with a sedative filling to see if it would help. This was 2 weeks ago. over the weekend i have noticed a swelling above the questioning tooth (an upper molar) kinda of where the gum meets the cheek bone. I thought it was maybe an abcess but the dentist said 2 weeks ago that the tooth was still alive and she was 99% certain it wasn't an abcess (even thou she didn't xray it). the lump is sore and also feels very hard as if it is part of the bone, I have sacred myself stupid now today googling only for it to come up with JAW CYSTS that can be caused from infected teeth spreading to bone!! with all sorts of surgries etc etc needed for it!!!
I am going to try and get another appoinment with dentist this week. but i feel she is getting fed up of me going back all the time. but what are u supposed to do if in pain??
i'm just wondering if anyone knows if a jaw cyst could develop within a 12 week time frame or if the lump could be something more simple. I think it was also maybe near where she injected the needle to numb?? i'm just worried sick right now as to what it could be and scared about losing teeth!!! :-((((
saralou

[Alabasterlyn]

I had a hard lump above an upper molar about 8yrs ago, just after I'd had a root canal done on a tooth. Like yours it was sort of sore and felt like bone. When I went back to the dentist to ask what the lump was she just said it was from the root canal treatment, so I just went along with that.

In the last 8mths I've been going to a different dentist and she re did the root canal as apparently my previous dentist had only taken out part of one nerve, left the top of it in and also two other nerves had been left in too. Soon after I had the tooth redone the bony lump went away, which is weird as I was sure it was bone. However I had that for 8yrs and it certainly didn't cause me any other problems, so I'm not really sure what is was.

I wouldn't worry about going back and forth to the dentist, after all you are paying them to sort your tooth out and if that means a lot of visits then so be it. I would ask them to x ray it as if there is any infection or something it will show on that. I doubt very much that you have a jaw cyst though, although I can understand how easy it is for you to worry :hugs:

[blueangel]

Hi there

I had a very bad tooth abscess about 18 months ago, and unusually it came up on both the outside of the gum and into the roof of my mouth. It took AGES to settle down, even following a root canal treatment, and was swollen and uncomfortable for about 3 months. My dentist very helpfully only put a temporary crown over it for about 12 months, in case it all went horribly wrong and he had to take the tooth out, but it seems fine now and doesn't give me any trouble at all (fingers crossed!)

However, if it suddenly gets much more painful, or swells alarmingly, or you start to get a fever from it, then go back to the dentist as that would point to there being an infection there.

Hope this helps!

[saralou]

hi
thanks for the replies..i went back to dentist this morning and she felt lump and said it felt like part of the gum. She can't understand why i'm having so many probs with this tooth so she did xray it today. i will get results tomorrow. If she doesn't see anything she says she'll redo the xray again in a few weeks and then if no joy and still in pain she'll refer me to the university dental school (which conviently i work opposite :-) as apparently there is an excellent consultant there who deals with diagnosing facial/dental pain.
anyway will let u know what happens
thanks again
saralou