Completed part one of root canal; how much more pain am I in for? (teeth, hurts)
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Location: Huntersville/Charlotte, NC and Washington, DC
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I went to the dentist for a painful toothache today and it was determined I needed a root canal. I went through the first part today and it was painful. My mouth still has the numbness potion the injected me with. They put a temporary filling in and I'm going back next week to finish the deed. Am I in for more pain, if so how much?
Thankfully thanks to having such good insurance this wont hurt my wallet much.
I had a double root canal, bone grafting and gum lifting surgery yesterday and I didn't feel one ounce of pain and I was in agony before I went in all weekend. Today I can eat just fine and didn't even take pain meds. I would get a new dentist there is no reason this day in age to be feeling pain with a root canal. As for more numbing if thats the case.
If anyone has a dental procedure started and it hurts, the anesthesia is inadequate and that needs to be corrected before the procedure continues. It may be that not enough time was allowed after the injection, or it might be due to individual variation in the location of nerves. If the dentist cannot get good anesthesia with the local injection there are other alternatives.
I went to the dentist for a painful toothache today and it was determined I needed a root canal. I went through the first part today and it was painful. My mouth still has the numbness potion the injected me with. They put a temporary filling in and I'm going back next week to finish the deed. Am I in for more pain, if so how much?
Thankfully thanks to having such good insurance this wont hurt my wallet much.
Are you saying it was painful -during- the procedure? That should not have been the case. It -is- painful when they inject you with the novocaine/lidocaine solution, the shot itself gives a rather profound, thankfully short-lived searing burning sensation. But that goes away within a few seconds after they pull the needle out.
You might feel soreness during the procedure just from having your jaw tugged open for an hour - but that would be just general "achiness" in your jaw and not at the site of the root canal.
On rare occasions, the anasthesia doesn't "set" fast enough and you might feel some heat - not exactly burning, but almost - during the very initial part of the root canal. But by the time they get any further than the outer layer of enamel the anasthesia will have gotten through and you'd feel no pain for the rest of it.
Once it starts to wear off, you might very well feel discomfort. That varies from patient to patient, from tooth to tooth. Incisors are often very sore after a root canal, because they're so close to a sinus and it's common for the sinus to be a little banged up. Back teeth, not so much, but the gum around the tooth would probably be sore and maybe even a little scraped up - typically just from the dentist's fingernail while he's working around back there. Not a big deal, but not comfortable.
So that's the extent of the pain you -might- feel, before, during, and after the procedure. If you felt anything other than that, or anything more significant than that, then something went wrong and you need to communicate that to the dentist so he doesn't repeat the problem with the return visit.
The permanent filling should go VERY smoothly. You'll probably feel something that you'll be able to compare to a pipe cleaner cleaning out a very gunky pipe. That'll be his little tiny metal wire thingies measuring the drill hole for the right amount of composite to fill it.
Then, you'll feel some tugging, but no pain at all, of any kind. You'll then feel a thin, directed stream of water squirting hard onto the tooth, it might feel a little cool but that's about it. Then you'll feel pressure when he pushes the permanent filling in and compacts it into the drill-hole. The longest part of this final procedure will be the measuring for the composite, and the time it takes for the composite to be mixed and set properly before inserting.
This final procedure (and "recovery") should be pretty much painless and un-traumatic, unless the dentist has jagged fingernails
Shouldn't feel pain with a root canal, are you serious? I can tell none of you have ever gone to dental school, so here's the truth and listen up! I'm a dentist and I've done many many root canals, some people feel it when getting the nerve out of the tooth and some don't, it all depends on the symptoms and the condition of the pulp tissue and at the apex. Take a wild guess what us dentists call it when we can't achieve anesthesia? HOT TOOTH! I had one just today, gave a patient quite a number of carpules of anesthesia and wouldn't you know it the pulp tissue was so inflammed I couldn't do the procedure. It's just like a few weeks ago when I had a patient in my chair that I referred to the oral surgeon to have some extractions and wouldn't you know it the patient told me that the oral surgeon, the ORAL SURGEON, couldn't get her numb and had to bring her back twice. *Sidenote: If an oral surgeon can't get someone know you know it's bad, those guys are pretty much the experts at getting people numb. It's not uncommon for someone to feel sensation when coming close to the nerve. I do this procedure at least once per day and for the most part everything goes smoothly, but every now and again if there's alot of infection and the pulp tissue is inflammed, you may feel just alittle. Once inside the pulp chamber you can inject anesthesia inside the tooth, that's the best anesthesia you can give anyone. And even if the nerve is out of the tooth doesn't necessarily mean you'll be pain free either, what about the infection that's still present at the bottom of the tooth? There are all kinds of factors that go into doing this procedure and let me say this, I can't tell you how many people have come back to me and told me that they were pain free after removing the nerve from the tooth. Now, remember something, dentists like myself like to do root canals in two steps. First, you remove the nerve from the tooth and find the canals, if you think that's easy go ahead and enroll yourself into a dental school and try it yourself, it's quite complicated. Once the nerve is out and the canals are found, usually the dentist will put some CaOH inside the canals (bacteriostatic) and let the symptoms subside for awhile. By the way, at the dental school I went to (Temple University) we were taught not to instrument teeth that are symptomatic, meaning patients that come into the office in pain, just do that, get them out of pain, no need to be the hero here. Second visit will be easy because the patient is out of pain (BINGO), there's no bleeding inside of the tooth and the situation is more manageable. Have I convinced anyone yet? Hope this all helps!
My endodontist won't do root canals on badly infected areas. He prescribes antibiotics to kill the infection, and THEN he does the root canal. He says it's way too dangerous to drill into an infection, that it can make it too easy for the infection to spread deeper.
So no, there wouldn't be that kind of pain. I had an infection around a nerve on my incisor. I had to take the antibiotics, and it finally calmed down after a couple of days. He went in at that point. The infection was still there, but the swelling and pus had receeded to a minimal state. The anasthesia shot was almost unbearable but the rest of it was blissfully painless.
By the way, the antibiotics that us dentists prescribe doesn't actually get rid of the infection like you may think. I sometimes do the same thing your doctor did, prescribe first and get the infection down alittle and then go in. What the antibiotics really do is calm the situation alittle, keeps the infection in check so that you can go in and do the procedure. I can't tell you how many times I've tried getting someone numb and couldn't because there was so much infection present in that general area. If the pH of the local anesthestic and the surrounding tissue are close to each other, the better the anesthestic will work. If there's infection present (lower pH), the anesthesia in a sense if fighting with the infection to diffuse into the tissue and won't work as much. Hope this helps.
I went to the dentist for a painful toothache today and it was determined I needed a root canal. I went through the first part today and it was painful. My mouth still has the numbness potion the injected me with. They put a temporary filling in and I'm going back next week to finish the deed. Am I in for more pain, if so how much?
Thankfully thanks to having such good insurance this wont hurt my wallet much.
You probably got this completed already, but you shouldn't feel ANY pain. Other than the stinging from the injection(s) for numbing. I just got mine completed Wednesday and it was an issue because one of the roots curved (and Endodontist's nightmare..ahahaha)! Ughhh.....But it did not hurt; just spent a lot of time with this apparatus around my mouth to keep my mouth open (for over an hour)! Now that was a "PAIN"!!!
You probably got this completed already, but you shouldn't feel ANY pain. Other than the stinging from the injection(s) for numbing. I just got mine completed Wednesday and it was an issue because one of the roots curved (and Endodontist's nightmare..ahahaha)! Ughhh.....But it did not hurt; just spent a lot of time with this apparatus around my mouth to keep my mouth open (for over an hour)! Now that was a "PAIN"!!!
Can you share what you paid for that curved root canal in NYC? I need the same, regular dentist referred me to an endodontist because of the angling root. He thought it would be $600-$700. The endo office in Tampa told me today they charge $950. Mine still swollen so have to wait. Either way they want 100% up front.
Can you share what you paid for that curved root canal in NYC? I need the same, regular dentist referred me to an endodontist because of the angling root. He thought it would be $600-$700. The endo office in Tampa told me today they charge $950. Mine still swollen so have to wait. Either way they want 100% up front.
Hi Kitty_FL: I didn't pay anything. They took my dental insurance. However, I may have to pay a percentage, but unsure how much it is yet. I do know that it is a costly procedure.
They never request a dime upfront; none of my doctors do! They bill my insurance and then depending on the procedure and how much my insurance pays I pay the remainder (if any). This is after all the work is completed.
Don't wait too long after the area has subsided from the swollenness. I was fortunate in that I didn't have that, but I did start to wake up at 3 am from some throbbing pain; not too bad though. That's when I knew something was wrong.
It really depends on your insurance coverage. I can find out how much it is; if one had to pay outright.
Good luck with your tooth!
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