Abscess during root canal treatment

geri1965_2

I'm in the middle of a course of root canal treatment at the moment. The treatment itself is not too bad, however, after the second session ten days ago the tooth was tender if I put my teeth together or if my toothbrush touched it. Gradually it got more and more painful and was pretty painful the whole weekend, so I got an emergency appointment for this afternoon.

My usual dentist was off sick so I saw someone else. He said I probably had an infection/abscess due to the tooth not being cleaned out properly during the treatment and gave me a prescription for some antibiotics.

It cost me £18 for the emergency appointment and £7.85 for the antibiotics. Am I right to feel a bit miffed that the tooth wasn't cleaned out properly leading to an infection (i.e. the dentist was at fault) or is it just one of those things? I'm not too bothered about the cost of it as I can claim the £18 back from my dental scheme hopefully, but it has been quite horrible for the past week or so.

I'm thinking of changing dentists after the treatment is finished but if this is commonplace then maybe there is no point.

Toothsmith

It's a bit unprofessional to say something like "Wasn't cleaned properly in front of the patient.

Working inside the root canal system of the tooth is a very intricate, very fiddly thing to do. It is easily possible to miss little bits, and the various disinfectants that are squirted down the root canals are designed to get the bits and pieces that just filing can't.

So when he says it wasn't cleaned properly he means that some little bit might just have been missed - which can happen to anybody at any time. It could also be that some debris was just pushed through the end of the tooth, which can also cause problems like you describe.

The important bit is to make sure it's stable and quiet by the time you come to fill it.

I think he needs to be a bit more careful with his choice of words in future.

geri1965_2

Thanks, I don't want to be harsh on her if it was something that she couldn't really have helped. I know she had some difficulties with it as she said she couldn't reach one of the roots, and they are apparently very thin.