My pleasure. I hope you find some helpful information by talking with other “canaries”. The Canary Report is just a goldmine of info.

I am sorry it took me awhile to post your comment. The last few days have been very hectic.

The pain is only when I chew and only if I chew on that side (with rare exceptions). So, it’s not like I’m in agony or anything. I’ve just been chewing on the other side. It’s more about my fear of needing another extraction. Since it’s not an emergency (and due to scheduling issues on my end and my dentist’s end), I won’t be seeing my regular dentist until April (3rd week of it, if I remember correctly). I hope it can be saved. If the rest of my teeth weren’t in such bad shape, I’d be less worried. With my current situation, I need to hang onto every tooth I can! I have decalcification at the gum-line on all my teeth. So I have a bunch of little cavities. Then there are teeth that are more messed up than those. I have TMJ and grind my teeth in my sleep. So, there’s a lot going on.

I don’t know what the temporary filling was. I’ll try to remember to ask when I see him. I have a feeling he and I are going to have a lot to talk about (the whole bit where I fired the endodontist will chew up time… no pun intended). So, I’ll try to ask. I know how my dentist is and I know we’re going to have our hands full covering everything going on with my teeth. As far as any permanent fillings, he uses Futura for me because I can’t tolerate the stuff he uses for most patients at all.

The link I gave you is actually for a group in the social network part of The Canary Report. There is a blog but this is sort of a side project off of the main site. You’ll see what I mean when you check it out. Let me know if you have any questions.

Good luck.

Jeanne

Thank you so much for all the information and that you responded so quickly. Also, thank you for making it easy for me to find the web site:)

Sorry, you’re still working with that tooth and having pain. I hope your dentist can ease your pain soon and save your tooth.

Would you mind when you see your dentist, if you can, would you ask him what he filled the root canal with? Was it the gutta percha? And also what was used for the temporary filling?

I will check out the Canary MCS dental blog. Thank you.

Maggie

To save you some time, I found the direct links to The Canary Report discussions about root canals. I believe if you click on this link, it will ask you to register for the site.

Root canal discussions with MCS patients:

HERE

Hope this helps.

Jeanne

I was mixed up. The post you saw wasn’t the older one I thought it was. I have so many dental problem I was confusing posts. Everything else in my first comment to you still applies, though. Sorry for the confusion.

Jeanne

P.S. The older post about my extraction tooth was about the nightmares (literal) I went through with nitrous oxide… which I will NEVER get again:

Old post about what happened to me from nitrous oxide

Since you have MCS, I just thought I’d share my nitrous oxide story. It is supposedly a rare reaction but I had Googled it at the time and it was definitely connected. I also have a friend who has MCS and had terrible nightmares after nitrous oxide. So it might be something to be aware of.

This post that you commented on is actually an older one regarding a tooth that I had extracted in December 2008. It sounds like you may have read a more recent post of mine because you were asking about root canals.

I had a root canal a couple of months ago. I was concerned about this going in because I did not know how I would handle the exposure. My dentist is very helpful and takes MCS seriously. He explained that he would (with my consent) be using a substance that made me nervous (bleach) to clean out the canal but that he would be taking precautions to keep the bleach from leaking anywhere. He explains he’d put it in the canal to clean it and then suction it all back out. He used a dam and took great care not to allow any of it to go anywhere but the canal itself. It is my understanding that the bleach would not be able to permeate through.

He did this quickly and I never even smelled it (amazing because I am so sensitive to bleach). He also uses that air puffer thing to blow any fumes away from me as he works. While my root canal initially appeared to have gone well (no chemical reaction), my problems with that tooth are not over.

To make a long story short, he was not able to get as far into the canal as he wanted. (His instruments were bending). So, he was hoping that it would work. He asked me to come back in 3 weeks. By then, I knew that the tooth wasn’t feeling right.

Skipping ahead a bit, he referred me to an endodontist for what he believed was a failed root canal. To make a long story short, I had one appointment with the endodontist. He did not re-do the root canal (which had been the purpose of my visit) and did not seem convinced that the root canal tooth was the source of the pain.

I do have TMJ and I do grind my teeth but I believe it was a failed root canal. He adjusted the bite on the root canal tooth (which did nothing) and I was supposed to go back last Monday. I was not comfortable with how that appointment went. To make a long story short, I canceled that appointment. I was just not comfortable with the endodontist. So, the problem is not yet resolved. I need to go back to my regular dentist and make a plan.

As far as discussing MCS and dental issues, I highly recommend joining The Canary Report’s NING social network and talking with other MCS patients. I had posted a question about failed root canals there and several kind people wrote back to me. To join the MCS network, just click on the “networking” link in my blog’s left sidebar. There you will see a widget for The Canary Report. If you click that, you can register there. There is a large, thriving, and helpful MCS community there. Susie Collins, editor of The Canary Report, is extraordinarily helpful and informative!

There are other options besides bleach. Peroxide was mentioned to me by a member of The Canary Report. The endodontist I saw (while I didn’t care for him) had mentioned there is at least one other option for cleaning out the canal. (I don’t know the name of the product. It was a brand name).

I did have a temporary filling for 3 weeks. I don’t know what the name of the material was. My regular dentist replaced it with a permanent filling (prior to referring me to the endodontist). My dentist uses Futura bond to fill my teeth.

Good luck! Keep me posted.

Jeanne

I’m glad your root canal went well. Your last post was the day after. Curious how it has been since with your MCS esp since there were many other steps to take place following.

I have sensitive MCS. The only dentist I’m able to see is nice but unable to research it for me. Curious about what your dentist used for you that wasn’t as noxious for your RC. I know there are many steps to this process, would you be able to find out what he/she used for cleaning, temporary filling, filling, etc.? I could then research it and check it out with my dentist to see if they work for me. I really need help with this.

Thank you for any help.
Hope you are doing well.
Maggie

It went well. My dentist is amazing! He is so careful because he knows how sensitive I am. He doesn’t ignore my multiple chemical sensitivity like my former dentist did.

I have a temporary filling in the tooth now. He wants to be sure everything is good before making it permanent (long story). I also still have the tail end of my second round of antibiotics left. We’ll see whether he can replace the temporary filling with a permanent one in 3 weeks or whether he needs to do some tweaking. It depends how my tooth behaves between now and my next appointment. It really went well, though. I was so relaxed that I actually started falling asleep a couple of times during the root canal! The only thing I had been given was the numbing shots. It’s not like I was drowsy from anesthesia or something. I was just very relaxed. I had 2 shots (“ow”, of course) and after that it was easy.

I’m sorry about your gum problems. I get sores in my mouth when I’m stressed too. I have found probiotics very helpful for this. The kind I get are in capsules and get refrigerated. Thinking of you too.

Jeanne
xo

Exactly! I was very nervous when I had my first root canal because I had heard root canals used so often as an example of excruciating pain. I had braced myself for the worst. Towards the end of the root canal, it started to occur to me that the dentist appeared to be winding down and finishing up. Did it hurt? Sure. However, it honestly was no worse than a lot of the types of pain I deal with daily with my various chronic illnesses! So, by the time he indicated that it was done, I remember sitting there and thinking, “that’s it?” Seriously, it was so much better than I had feared. I was so relieved. So, yes, it struck me as odd that people use root canals as an example of horrible pain because, for me, it was no worse than pain I deal with daily from other things!

Perhaps because that root canal was no big deal, I am quite calm heading into today’s root canal. I’m aware, of course, that I’m older and sicker now than I was when I had the first one done. So, I am fully aware that there’s no guarantee this one will be like the other one. However, I’m just so grateful that he can save this tooth (as opposed to extracting it like the abscessed tooth I had in December 2008) that I’m just going to do what I have to do. Not only do I not want to lose another tooth in that same area but that extraction was a nightmare because the anesthesia didn’t work and I felt EVERYTHING. So, I will happily take the root canal!

Thanks for thinking of me. It’ll be OK.

Jeanne

Isn’t it strange how living with chronic pain makes what normal people think is something painful not really much pain at all?
.-= Yaya´s last blog ..Prayers and Positive Thoughts Please! =-.