I am worried my husband is not getting the right dental treatment. Hubby is the backetball coach for my son’s team. He took a tumble that knocked him in the mouth. We went to see the dentist who felt that the tooth needed to settle down before any treatment took place. When it was time for treatment, he had some discoloration of the tooth. The dentist said she didn’t see a problem and only felt some dried blood. She fit him for a crown and he wore a temporary crown for three weeks before the permanent one arrived. About a month later he ended up needing an emergency root canal treatment. She gave him a 5 day course of amoxicillan at the start of the root canal treatment and then finished it up a week later. I was a bit worried about her closing it up because he was still in so much pain. A few weeks later he was still in pain so she root canaled the adjacent tooth, without any evidence of infection. I doubt that root canal treatment was even necessary. Still no relief for him after that. I’m worried about him because now his cheek is swollen up to his eye. What do I do?
Angie
Dear Angie,
Your husband has a dental emergency and needs to be seen by someone soon. My suggestion would be for him to see an endodontist at this point. I don’t think your dentist has any idea what she is doing with this if I understand the course of events carefully. First, when the tooth was discolored and she felt dried blood it was obvious the tooth needed a root canal treatment but she put that off. Then, when she finally did do the treatment, she didn’t do it correctly.
Here are the problems with how she handled the actual treatment. First, she waited until the tooth blew up into something much more serious. Then, she gave him the wrong antibiotic for the situation. For tooth infections, clindamycin is generally the antibiotic of choice. Yet, even if she had prescribed the right medication, it sounded like she closed up the tooth after the antibiotic had run out. She would have needed to do that before, while there was still antibiotic being taken.
Seeing an endodontist will get your husband the right treatment. When you call to schedule your appointment, make sure you explain what has happened to your husband, if they can’t get him in right away, they can at least get him out of pain.
This blog is brought to you by Kalamazzo Dentist Dr. Susan Dennis.