Holy crap my tooth is killing me, ow ow ow!

January 19, 2006 6:02 PM

Sinus Infection filter with a dash of god aweful tooth ache.. Who should I go see?

The last couple weeks I have been stuffy and mucousey. I know I should have gone to see a Dr. by now, but money has been kinda tight the last couple weeks, and we owe some money to them and blah blah blah. So basically I was waiting for it to clear up on its own..
This morning my back teeth on my right hand side started hurting really bad. Reading up some on the net about it said it can be related to acute maxillary sinusitis. Sounds about what I have been experiencing. Right now the pain is killing me, and I am getting parinoid about the infection creeping from my sinuses to my brain which I know happened to my step dad and has pretty much put him in a vegatative state.

My question is basically this:
Who should I go see, the Doctor, or the dentist? I work third shift so I will be up all night at work, but I can have my wife make an appointment in the morning when she gets up. The pain has been really bad today, to the point where I only got about 3 hours of sleep. My dentist is quite good, but very old school. The only Dr.'s in my area are part of a medical group, and have a tendancy to diagnose you in about 3 minutes without really listening to what you have to say (I've been to the Dr's several times in the last couple years complaining about really bad foot pain that springs up randomly and then goes away in a day or two.. Every time they touch my foot, tell me its arthritis and give me a scrip for meds that don't really do much)

posted by JonnyRotten to health & fitness (12 comments total)

Guess I should also mention that side of my face is feeling kinda warm too. I think I may take half a EV day today and come home early.. Oh god its painful
posted by JonnyRotten at 6:08 PM on January 19, 2006

Maybe to make clear what I am asking, Will my dentist be able to prescribe all the things I will need to get this taken care of if its a sinus infection?
posted by JonnyRotten at 6:11 PM on January 19, 2006

If you think you are getting an abscess you should go to the dentist right now. Immediately. They will have to put you on antibiotics to treat the infection before they can do anything about it for one, and for seconds if you ignore a tooth abscess you can end up in the ER on IV antibiotics pretty fast. Which will be a lot more expensive!

I'd call my dentists emergency line and tell him the deal asap, personally.
posted by fshgrl at 6:14 PM on January 19, 2006

I second the dentist. And any dentist I've ever been to can prescribe both antibiotics and painkillers, which is probably what you need.
posted by katyggls at 6:22 PM on January 19, 2006

My dentist doesn't have an emergency line, so its either the emergency room or wait for me. But I should be able to get an appointment right after werk in the morning.
posted by JonnyRotten at 6:25 PM on January 19, 2006

i had a problem like this some years ago. i went to the doctor, he looked in my ear for 25mS and said: "you have an ear infection, here are your antibiotics". i took the antibiotics, the pain went away and i thought everything was fine.

about 3 months later, the sinus pain was back, but this time i could tell that my tooth was also hurting. long story short, i had a completely rotten upper molar that needed a root canal in the end (surprisingly this was not painful or crazy horrible as i had expected from hearing horror stories about root canals.)

so the antibiotics had quelled the infection in the tooth a bit and probably allowed it to get much worse; who knows if i would have lost the root if i had gone to the dentist first.
posted by joeblough at 6:29 PM on January 19, 2006

I would actually recommend an ENT, sometimes your sinuses can swell and press on the tooth's nerve - it doesn't mean something is wrong with the tooth. My mom gets this every once in a while and a dentist has never been able to help.
posted by blackkar at 7:13 PM on January 19, 2006

i had a sinus infection that I was taking antibiotics for for over a month, during the last round of checkups at the eye/ear doctor they told me that there was nothing wrong with my sinuses and if I did have an infection all those antibiotics definitely killed it.

Well that was a relief, but sure enough the next day my 2nd molar started hurting so bad that I had to go in for an emergency pulpectomy. Most of the pain was my tooth and not my sinuse.

I think a quick check-up of that one tooth that you think is bothering you is going to cost less than getting yor sinuses checked, so I would do that because if it is your tooth, the pain is going to get worse faster than if it's your sinuse.

Either way, don't delay. It might mean the difference between a root canal or just a filling.
posted by eatcake at 8:12 PM on January 19, 2006

I just got my upper right wisdom tooth pulled on Dec 27 (the only one I had left) and the roots from it were sticking up into my sinus cavity. The oral surgeon closed that opening with a stitch and then closed the wisdom tooth opening as normal. I was told not to sneeze or blow my nose.

I had failed to tell the guy I had a 4 day old cold, and didn't know he would tell me not to do these things...too late once the tooth was pulled.

Anyway, over the next week I did sneeze and had to blow to breathe some nights fromt eh cold, and every time I knew I had opened the sinus cavity stitch because sneezing or blowing would send a bunch of mucous down into my mouth from the vacant tooth cavity.

The pain went on, mildly for about 10 days and then I started getting a nasty taste in my mouth and my wife said my nose smelled. That night I went to yoga and felt like I was getting the flu while I was there. Hot bath and to bed after, but a night of cold sweats followed.

I went and got a curved syringe from them to clean out the tooth cavity as I figured I had rotting food up in there, but when I shot it up there just right, it hit a nerve that triggered a flush of mucous out my nose...and that stuff was neon green and the mot wretched foul stench ever! My wife came in the bathroom and turned on the fan and high tailed it out of there. After about a dozen hits, it was flowing clean.

So I kept doing this a few times a day, got some antibiotic mouthwash and looks like its just finishing clearing up, but I don't want to think about what could have happened if I ignored it. That night at yoga I got weak because my immune system was toast and I got hit with another cold.

Moral of the story: don't F with sinus infections!
posted by Chuck Cheeze at 10:07 PM on January 19, 2006

Simply, my suggestion is to hit up the doc first, but to also make an appointment with your dentist.

Better to be safe than sorry. These things always pan out best when you cut the problems off at the pass.
posted by viachicago at 11:10 PM on January 19, 2006

My suggestion is to make two appointments -- one with the dentist and one with the doctor. As Chuck Cheeze said, sometimes the roots of upper molars can grow into the sinuses, and an infection of the tooth that spreads to the sinuses (or vice versa) is sort of a worst-of-both-worlds problem.

I tend to disagree with viachicago (though I'm not a doc): I think you should see the dentist first. If it's an abscess, it could require an emergency procedure (like a root canal), which would be followed by a course of antibiotics (which would help with a sinus infection, if you have one of those, too). I suspect that a doc would just write you an antibiotic prescription and follow up in a week or so -- or refer you to an oral surgeon/dentist.

Seeing a doctor (like an ENT) after the dentist, though, might help to clear up any lingering infection in the sinuses, so that it doesn't brew for months requiring that you have endoscopic sinus surgery.
posted by penchant at 8:11 AM on January 20, 2006

My back upper molars really ached when I used to get annual monumental sinus infections. Finally I went to an acupuncturist and told her the symptoms and she needled me and I noticed nothing really but then, walking home, my nose started draining like a faucet. I blew through a pack of tissues and had to get more. The next morning, I felt much better. Two days later, I was fine. Told a friend who'd had sinus surgery one year and was due to have it again because of impacted sinuses, and she went to the acupuncturist and they cancelled the surgery when she went in at the end of the week. Also, I use saline spray before bed every night and try to keep the window open so the radiators can't dry out the place. Definitely see a doctor, especially w/your stepdad's story, but supplement any medicine with a trip to the acupuncturist, too. Honest, it works.
posted by eve harrington at 5:39 PM on January 21, 2006