[R.B.]

A cautionary tale for those with troublesome root fillings.

For those of you who may have noted my observations starting in 2007 as to an ongoing infection in the jaw I finally went to see a top London Maxi-facial Consultant with the support of an excellent new dentist.

The Noted Consultant confirmed what I have always suspected that the bone at the corner of the nose was / had been infected. I have unsuccessfully spent 5 years and more, based on my analysis of the symptoms (sometime symptoms including pain, red eye lid, tender bones round eye, swollen gland at the back of the skull, skin reddening and flaking, swelling, acid night-time discharges, blocked lacrimal duct, bad tastes /breath from affected nostril, fluid discharge / sensitivity from the nose during exercise, abbesses in that segment of the jaw, eye glued shut etc) trying to convince a wider range of dentists, my doctor, the hospital et al that I had a wider jaw / skull infection, and had had an MRI, 2 CTs, OPGs etc etc etc.

It took the Noted Consultant about 10 seconds (almost instant with no hesitation) of looking at the copy of the disc of a year old CT scan before he pointed to the damaged bone, which he then showed me on a 3D image of the skull. You could not miss it - a black space surrounded by grey about the size of my thumbnail at the base of the entrance to the nose - exactly where all this time I have been pointing,with my finger half stuck up my nose, pleading plaintiffully "the problem is here". I have no idea if he had better software, or why it was so easy for him, using an existing CT to almost instantly come to that conclusion that there was damaged / infected bone, when after many x-rays etc the fact had eluded others for several years .

The upshot is that hopefully the infection should clear now the incisor, root filled as a child following a hockey accident, and subsequently apisectomied twice etc etc. the likely source of infection, had recently been removed, (when the tooth was extracted the putrid smell confirmed that area round the crown post was evidently a bacterial Hilton, and bacterial safehaven from antibiotics etc - 4 root filled teeth all in the same segment have now been the source of bone infection - including one more that died following an adjacent apisectomy, and including the offending incisor which resulted in infection to the bone around the entrance to the nose - I have not needed any other dental work for 15 years so this is not due to poor maintenance, and gums appeared healthy etc.) I now have to wait six months to find out if the bone has healed. It looks like the song "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth" will resonate for a while yet. It is still an intermittent source of pain at a low level, and the occasional source of bad tastes / smells in the affected nostril but is much improving, as hopefully is my brain fuzz / anxiety.

On the positive side I suspect if my diet was not as good as it is (always room for improvement) that there is a chance it could have spread. Also I now know what it is, that my analysis was right, and I can no longer be treated with a certain amount of disdain by some medical / dental professionals who made it pretty clear that they viewed my symptoms as being in my imagination.