Infected tooth and back pain?

angelll

This will be a long one! Had a filled back molar,the filling came off at some stage in the last year. At the beginning of june i went to get it filled. I've always had problems getting anaesthetic,i seem to neutralize it v quickly. Anyway had 5 injections,wasn't numb so dentist gave me 5 more,completely numbed my whole mouth and,tongue and throat and i couldn't swallow,started shaking ec. Great fun. We tried again,bit of the tooth fell off,i wasn't feeling great so said look stick a temp filling on and i'll come back again. Ended up in a&e after as i couldn't breathe properly,turned out i had a bad case of tonsillitis at the time too. So on i went with my temp filling,said i'd wait til i had trouble with it again and go back to my other dentist. Thing is i have med card and the first dentist accepts them,second doesn't. So i was waiting to have the €80/90 together as well. In the meantime i got a lot of issues with swallowing,stomach acid rising up constantly,raw tongue,red throat,breathing issues. Was on ppi's to reduce acid and then 3 weeks ago started waking up with really bad upper back pain,was getting it in the day as well. All in all i was feeling fairly crap as you can imagine. Tooth wasn't causing me any pain whatsoever. Decided to get tooth sorted today,metabolised the anaesthetic as usual and shook a bit but got more and was fine. The tooth went to bits in my mouth and tasted a really horrible taste. Dentsist said i'll extract,i had half thought it might need it so said no prob off you go. Tooth out,off i went. So what's the point you ask? Well my back pain has disappeared! Completely gone after almost a month of daily agony. I even went to physio and felt worse after. So i think it was the tooth,it must have been infected even with no pain or abcess that i could see. Is this possible and could i have done any damage to myself? Should i take an antibiotic to be sure any infection is gone? Tia.

FISMA

You shouldn't play games or take risks when it comes to your teeth. An infection in this area could quickly spread to the brain. Unlike an infection in your toe, for example, one in the mouth has little distance to travel.

I am no doctor, however, it would not surprise me to hear of cases where infections from the mouth made their way to the spinal column.

I would have imagined that given your circumstances, the dentist would have recommended antibiotics.

If not, did you ask?

angelll

Thanks for your reply Fisma. Slept earlier after the extraction hence me being wide awake now asking questions online! I will certainly be going to my gp tomorrow,i'll ask her for an antibiotic just to be sure. I gave birth in April and had a lot of stomach and back issues throughout so even though they had gone away afterwards,when i started having problems again in june i presumed it was the same thing flaring up again as did my gp. At no stage did i have any pain in the tooth or anything that made me think it was causing problems. It had the temporary filling and i knew that may last a week or up to 3 months so it didn't concern me. Today was 2 months since it was done and it hadn't been causing me pain before i got it (almost) filled either,i just knew it needed a filling so went and tried to get it done. I had a lot of bloods in June including complete blood count,thyroid,iron,ERS,you name it. The only thing was a mildly elevated crp which was 3 (indicates slight inflammation in the body,not where though). I also had an abdominal scan of my stomach to check that,i was being very proactive! I didn't realise til tonight that i hadn't had a twinge all day and nothing after sleeping either which is when it flares usually. Would it be worth ringing the dentist as well/instead?

Oral Surgeon

angelll wrote: »

This will be a long one! Had a filled back molar,the filling came off at some stage in the last year. At the beginning of june i went to get it filled. I've always had problems getting anaesthetic,i seem to neutralize it v quickly. Anyway had 5 injections,wasn't numb so dentist gave me 5 more,completely numbed my whole mouth and,tongue and throat and i couldn't swallow,started shaking ec. Great fun. We tried again,bit of the tooth fell off,i wasn't feeling great so said look stick a temp filling on and i'll come back again. Ended up in a&e after as i couldn't breathe properly,turned out i had a bad case of tonsillitis at the time too. So on i went with my temp filling,said i'd wait til i had trouble with it again and go back to my other dentist. Thing is i have med card and the first dentist accepts them,second doesn't. So i was waiting to have the €80/90 together as well. In the meantime i got a lot of issues with swallowing,stomach acid rising up constantly,raw tongue,red throat,breathing issues. Was on ppi's to reduce acid and then 3 weeks ago started waking up with really bad upper back pain,was getting it in the day as well. All in all i was feeling fairly crap as you can imagine. Tooth wasn't causing me any pain whatsoever. Decided to get tooth sorted today,metabolised the anaesthetic as usual and shook a bit but got more and was fine. The tooth went to bits in my mouth and tasted a really horrible taste. Dentsist said i'll extract,i had half thought it might need it so said no prob off you go. Tooth out,off i went. So what's the point you ask? Well my back pain has disappeared! Completely gone after almost a month of daily agony. I even went to physio and felt worse after. So i think it was the tooth,it must have been infected even with no pain or abcess that i could see. Is this possible and could i have done any damage to myself? Should i take an antibiotic to be sure any infection is gone? Tia.

Your back pain, stomach etc have nothing to do with your tooth...

If it was a conventional extraction, there should be no need for post op antibiotics

Oral Surgeon

FISMA wrote: »

You shouldn't play games or take risks when it comes to your teeth. An infection in this area could quickly spread to the brain. Unlike an infection in your toe, for example, one in the mouth has little distance to travel.

I am no doctor, however, it would not surprise me to hear of cases where infections from the mouth made their way to the spinal column.

I would have imagined that given your circumstances, the dentist would have recommended antibiotics.

If not, did you ask?

Rubbish, if infection had made its way to your spinal cord, you'd know all about it...

Oral Surgeon

angelll wrote: »

Thanks for your reply Fisma. Slept earlier after the extraction hence me being wide awake now asking questions online! I will certainly be going to my gp tomorrow,i'll ask her for an antibiotic just to be sure. I gave birth in April and had a lot of stomach and back issues throughout so even though they had gone away afterwards,when i started having problems again in june i presumed it was the same thing flaring up again as did my gp. At no stage did i have any pain in the tooth or anything that made me think it was causing problems. It had the temporary filling and i knew that may last a week or up to 3 months so it didn't concern me. Today was 2 months since it was done and it hadn't been causing me pain before i got it (almost) filled either,i just knew it needed a filling so went and tried to get it done. I had a lot of bloods in June including complete blood count,thyroid,iron,ERS,you name it. The only thing was a mildly elevated crp which was 3 (indicates slight inflammation in the body,not where though). I also had an abdominal scan of my stomach to check that,i was being very proactive! I didn't realise til tonight that i hadn't had a twinge all day and nothing after sleeping either which is when it flares usually. Would it be worth ringing the dentist as well/instead?

Your gp knows nothing about your dental treatment so why ask him/her for the antibiotics?? If you needed them your dentist would have given a prescription...
A crp of 3 is essentially normal....

You need to relax op

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Focal infection theory is false, the back pain had nothing to do with the tooth. Its an old logic falsehood to assume that if something happens close to another thing that its caused by the second.....post hoc ergo propter hoc.

angelll

Sorry wasn't getting any notifications! So just a coincidence my back pain went then? Well a very happy coincidence then,i was in agony with it. My jaw,ear and throat are still sore when swallowing and the site hurts but resume it will clear up soon,only took 2 lots of pain relief today,haven't had anything since 3.30pm so that must mean it's improving.

Oral surgeon you are absolutely right,i know i'm causing a lot of symptoms through stress,just have quite a bit going on at the moment,hopefully things will improve soon

Thanks for the replies.

Oral Surgeon

angelll wrote: »

Sorry wasn't getting any notifications! So just a coincidence my back pain went then? Well a very happy coincidence then,i was in agony with it. My jaw,ear and throat are still sore when swallowing and the site hurts but resume it will clear up soon,only took 2 lots of pain relief today,haven't had anything since 3.30pm so that must mean it's improving.

Oral surgeon you are absolutely right,i know i'm causing a lot of symptoms through stress,just have quite a bit going on at the moment,hopefully things will improve soon

Thanks for the replies.

Good to hear that all is settling...

All the best,
Os