About two years ago, I was eating a hamburger (yes, a hamburger
) and my teeth and jaw slid in such a way that it caused two of my teeth to chip. I then experienced a lot of sensitivity in those teeth so I went to my dentist. He said there was nothing he could do about the chipped teeth, but saw that a few of the fillings I had gotten when I was younger were "leaking" so he suggested that I have them replaced. I allowed him to replace the fillings on 4 of my teeth and went on my way.
A few weeks later, I noticed that one of the teeth (#14) was much more sensitive to hot, cold and pressure than ever before. It would also become quite sore randomly (unprovoked) and cause me headaches and jawaches. I went back to the dentist and he tried replacing the filling on that tooth yet again. Months pass and the tooth is still sensitive to hot, cold and pressure. So, I tried a different dentist. The new dentist was just about to replace the filling (yet again) when he decided to take a close look at an x-ray of the tooth. He saw a dark patch around one of the problem tooth's roots and suggested an endodontist perform a root canal. That was about a year ago.
I had the root canal performed, but the tooth was still sensitive. And even though I told the endo and my regular dentist this, they still went ahead with putting the permanent crown on the tooth. I gave the permanent crown about 3 months to settle in, but the sensitivity remained. I went back to the regular dentist several times and both times he thought the tooth was unable to heal because it was sticking up too high and being irritated by always having pressure on it, so he ground it down several times. This still wasn't helping so he referred me back to the endo who ground the crown down a bit more. This still didn't help so he drilled through the crown to make sure he didn't miss a root or part of a root. This procedure actually helped a lot for some reason and the sensitivity was 75% gone. I have one very curved root so he suspected that he may have missed something at the very tip of this root. He decided to drill back into the crown for a third time to try to get to the tip of that curved root. He was successful in cleaning out this root and filled the tooth/crown back in. Unfortunately, the pain is completely back and I would say that it's even a little worse than before. The endodontist is stumped and so am I. My x-rays don't show anything wrong with the tooth and there's nothing visibly abnormal outside or inside the tooth.
The endo says that the next course of action is to have surgery to cut the root tips off which is going to be expensive and not covered at all by my insurance. Of course, I would prefer to not have this surgery, but I don't know what else to do to stop the sensitivity/pain. There should be no feeling in this tooth since all the roots have been removed, yet I can feel when I lightly rub my nail across the crown. I've always brushed my teeth 2-3 times a day (albeit with Crest or Colgate) for as long as I can remember and flossed several times a week. Sometimes I use mouthwash too. I plan on switching to Spry toothpaste, but at this point I'm not sure if changing toothpastes/mouthwashes would improve the situation.
Does anyone have any ideas as to what my problem could be or suggestions on what else I can do?
Tooth Sensitivity Won't Go Away Even After 3 Root Canals! (long) :(
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