posted
is it possible to have a dental/jawbone infection or cavitation without having pain? at the onset of my lyme/babesia/ehrlichia, i broke a crown off at the gum line, also was building a deck using pressure treated wood. i assumed i was sick from the wood, high outdoor temp/ no protection combination. but as i was so horrible sick and getting worse, after a month, i had testing done and fortunately came up pos for all three. whenever i am doing especially bad, it has been noticed that i have a "horrible tooth smell" , usually preceding these worse periods. though i don't have tooth pain. when i did the salt/vit c program i had excruciating jaw pain though and had to quit. i am doing the cold laser now and the doc told me that i had a jaw infection but not at the broken crown site. my wife notices that there is a definite pattern here. anyone that has chronic lyme and no root canals?
Posts: 73 | From connecticut | Registered: Aug 2006
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Yes, it is quite possible to have a painless jawbone infection. Cold lazer is not the answer. You need a progressive, experienced oral surgeon to confirm what is the problem, and if it needs removal the operation calls for burr and curette.
1994-1998 my 4 wisdom tooth extraction sites became ischemic. The osteomyelitis/osteonecrosis was painless but the toxins almost killed me.
You need a competent oral surgeon who diagnoses and removes such infections.
-------------------- Neil Posts: 697 | From Tucson, AZ USA | Registered: Apr 2002
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I don't know the answer to your question regarding the possibility of having a painless gum infection.
However, I do agree with Neil in his advice to seek a consult from an oral surgeon. Last month during a routine dental check, my dentist mentioned to me a patient of his that has Lyme and developed a jaw/bone infection.
My dentist sent her right away to an oral surgeon for a consult. The oral surgeon felt that her chronic lyme caused the severe infection that had gone down to the bone level.
The oral surgeon had to remove five teeth and treat the serious infection. My dentist said that this was a shame because this happened to a young woman who had beautiful, healthy teeth until the infection did its damage.
I truly do not wish to unduly alarm you and certainly this may not be the situation in your case. However, I am inclined to think that a consult with a well qualified oral surgeon would be prudent.
Before I close, I can say that I once developed a gum abcess after having my wisdom teeth removed and I had no pain. I remember having daily fevers though and swelling to a degree. The oral surgeon had to open up my gum from one end to the other because the x-rays were negative in showing any problem. When he did open up the gum, he was able to locate the abcess and drain and wick it. So maybe in a way this might answer your question to some degree.
Wishing you all the best, Debbie
Posts: 162 | From RI | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Yes, it's possible. And I think - as Deb said - Lyme can cause some of the problems.
A Lyme-friend had no pain at all but an X-ray showed that she had pus under many teeth. She had to have them pulled and has only 5 remaining teeth left.
What most of the times you cannot see in X-rays are cavitations. My X-rays showed nothing. However, a CAVITAT-test showed osteonecrosis where 3 extracted wisdom teeth had been plus another problem zone where my one and only root canal had been extracted 8 years ago.
The cavitations did not hurt at all but the root canal site did.
I had the root canal site plus one cavitation operated today. Hope this will improve my situation.
Gabrielle
Posts: 767 | From Germany | Registered: Feb 2004
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treepatrol
Honored Contributor (10K+ posts)
Member # 4117
posted
Look in the back of your throat there are two holes that come from sinuses one on each side of throat near tonsils they plug up with yellowish stuff that stinks gives bad breath. I use to have that before treatment for lyme. I no longer have it I dont know if its a yeast thing but I suspect it has something to do with lymeies problem with there sinus's Maybe related to strep???? And they dont hurt just infection smell rotting food smell???
-------------------- Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Remember Iam not a Doctor Just someone struggling like you with Tick Borne Diseases.
GiGi
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 259
posted
Pain is not a sign of any problems. It is also as a rule not a sign of a bad root canal. I had many root canals and had no pain at all. My husband had no root canal, but only cavitations, but no pain at all.
only bad sign is being sick from the toxins - mercaptans and thioethers. Both are a lot more damaging and a lot worse than any of the different mercuries or other toxic metals that enter the brain. An ALS patient with a root canal is a perfect example of it.
This was written by the fellow who did my repair work. Only after I had this work done, did I start to improve, slowly expelling all the dental toxins out of my brain and body, and was totally healed. Lyme and all. I am totally healed today - still. It does not happen overnight. The dental toxins infiltrate anywhere - and won't stop unless you remove the source putting out the poisons. And remember, cavitation/infections spread, and it is not a good idea to put it off for long.
All this from my and my husband's experience. My husband got out of the wheelchair seven months after the surgeries. It takes the best oral surgeon for the work. I know only of a couple, and one has stopped practicing already. It is usually not a job for the neighborhood dentist.
Take care.
**************************************************** W I S D O M T E E T H or Teeth of Misfortune (Third Molars)
Facial Pain Linked To Infections by Christopher J. Hussar, D.D.S., D.O.
For almost a century controversy has waged regarding the existence of a disease process with infectious origins within the dental alveolus. These localized infectious processes have been strongly implicated in generating facial pain including trigeminal neuralgia along with other cranial facial pain disorders including, remote pain disorders in distant regions of the body. The Father of modem dentistry, G. V. Black, recognized and gave notice in one of his textbooks to the actuality of a hollow jaw bone, housing an infectious process within the dental alveolus.
A review of the literature reveals numerous papers from the early 20th century written by both M.D. and D.D.S. alike, describing the surgical debridement of jaw infections including devital teeth, and localized osteomyelitis lesions that successfully treated, not only localized facial pain, but remote pain disorders such as arthritis as well.
Sir Wilfred Harris, a British neurosurgeon, proposed the reality of a chronic intra osseous infection within the alveolus causing neural degenerative changes and demyelination to trigeminal nerve branches. This was in 1926 and was widely accepted by dental surgeons in America nearly a century prior.
In the early part of this century the theory of "focal disease" arose in which a chronically infected area of the body was responsible for causing pathology elsewhere. Many tonsils as well as teeth were removed with miraculous, as well as not so miraculous, results. The clinician would script an article expounding the cure of arthritis after the patient had several diseased teeth removed. Anecdotal cases of blindness reversal was documented (your author has witnessed such an event)...
Much credit must be attributed to the brilliant research of Dr. Weston Price in the early part of our century. With incredibly reproducible results, this research dentist demonstrated the existence of multiple bacterial strains in dental teeth including root canals.
In addition, he addressed the chronically infected periodontal membrane and periodicular bone resulting from infected teeth and the cavitation of such chronically infected bone if thorough socket curettabe was not performed properly.
With the ``disproving'' of the focal theory by our progressively autocratic medical/dental complex, the concept of chronic dental/alveolar infections has gone practically unrecognized for the past sixty years.
One of the reasons may be poor visuatlization of these chronically ``cavitated'' lesions on intra-oral radiographs. Usually housed within the cancellous bone, the cortical plates and their different x-ray absorption qualities obscure and alter the true picture lying deep within the jaw bone.
In reality, this is not the case as certain radiographic landmarks are quiate visible and will readily confirm the presence of these lesions. With continued x-ray evaluation along with curettage of a suspected lesion, they will become obvious. The above mentioned as been well documented by Jerry Bouquot, D.D.S., M.S.D., in his numerous articles on NICO (Neuralgia Industing Cavitational Osteonecrosis) lesions describing ``laminar rain,'' the x-ray visible, boney changes resemblung the rungs of a ladder. This results when the bone of the extraction site refuses to heal properly, literally leaving the root outlined. Micro calcification within the confines of the original extraction site, further confirms the presence of an inflammatory bone lesion, often referred to as a cavitation.''.
In surgerizing mandibular lesions, involvement of the inferior alveolar nerve (IAN) by the obstructive process creates a characteristic appearance on the x-ray. The superior aspect of the mandibular canal, the ``roof,'' is usually eliminated and the fine, dense superior white line is seen to disappear as the IAN courses through the lesion site. Absolute certainty of course only occurs with biopsy confirmation of curettaged tissue from these lesions. With little practice and suspicion, near one hundred percent accuracy is possible when performing the surgical debridements.
Perhaps our subject matter has been ignored for decades because of a failure to biopsy on the part of dentistry as a whole. Do endodontists rely on the biopsy for verification of tissue? Hardly, for my dental training down-played the role.
Do oral surgeons send their extracted teeth in for biopsy along with any abnormal bone that may be removed along with those teeth? It is my policy to biopsy every tissue fragment I remove from the mouth. My judgement in determining pathology has been incorrect less than .5% of the time. Once you begin to recognize the disease, the diagnosis becomes much easier.
When curetted, the contents of these intraosseous lesions may present varying types of diseased tissue. Commonly, when surgically opened, the lesion site is void of caancellous bone; thus the derivation of the term ``cavitation,'' a hollow cavity exists. Other presentations include hemorrhagic bone with easily curettaged spicules of both viable and non-viable bone. Multiple globules of adipose tissue representing degenerated bone can commonly be curettaged; in fact, **************opening up one of these lesions with a fissure burr causes an exudate not unlike bloody chicken soup with countless micelles of fat floating on the surface of the serium***************.
If an area of condensing osteomyelitis/osteitis is evident on an x-ray associated with a suspected cavitational area, surgically speaking the alveolar bone will usually possess a consistency of pearl-like hardness implying condensed bone that has been made devital by ischemia. This is extremely difficult bone to surgically eliminate especially in the presence of the inferior alveolar nerve. These patients will often develop facial pain syndrome and can be difficult to treat.
Microscopically most biopsy reports will demonstrate marrow fibrosis as the body attempts to regenerate itself, fibrotic material heals easier than bone. Multiple fragments of bone shard appear as the impaired blood supply cannot provide adequate flow to new bone attempting to replace diseased bone. When your patients come to you months after a difficult extraction, showing a small bone fragment that has worked its way through the gingiva, you didn't forget to irrigate it out; the body refused to nourish it and it sloughed. Lymphocytes may or may not be encountered depending on the chronicity of the infection, the immunity of the patient, nutritional status, and other factors. Neurophils, most commonly seen with acute inflammatory processes, are seen infrequently with cavitations. What is seen primarily is necrotic bone flake often intermingled with viable bone. Remarkably, very few osteoblasts or osteoclasts are observed in specimens.
Most articles covering facial pain are written dealing with trigeminal neuralgia, atypical facial pain (AFP) and TMJ, with the latter two being the most common. Most of these reading this article are well-versed in the treatment of TMJ disorders. However, what treatments do you prescribe to the patient who has had 5 or 6 bite splints from other practitioners and his facial pain persists without alleviation? You must always be suspicious of a ``NICO'' process smoldering in the patient's alveolus when consulted by such a patient.
********************Their orruccurrence is of epidemic proportions; if the patient has had any third molars removed, it's a safe bet to conclude that cavitations are present. Why do they cause pain in some and not others Multiple theories have been proposed as to what mechanisms exist allowing NICO's to generate pain A general consensus agrees upon the initial development of an intra-alveolar infection from a devital tooth, root-canaled tooth, ir extraction site. This infection persists within the alveolus and can ``tunnel'' or remain localized. In the mandible, the bascula system is an end-organ type or terminal vessel allowing basically one-way flow of blood.
Chronic infectious agents harboed in these cavities, namely bacteria and their endotoxins along with what appear to be viral agents causes a vasculitis in the arterial side eventually compromising the flow of blood.
With the onset of ischemia other changes occur. Antibiotics are not as effectivce for they rely on a blood supply to reach their target zone. Infectious agents often will die off or become rapidly attentuated and be rarely seen in biopsy. Bone necrosis develops, the affected alveolus cannot heal properly, and a pathologice entity arises called ``NICO.'' What caused the pain?
The physiology of the trigeminal nerval is extremely complex. Peripherally, the dentin contains 30,000 to 70,000 microtubules per square millimeter! Free sensory nerve endings and dentinoblasts course through these tubules and communicate with each other and pulped nerve fibers, The pulp itself contains at best 600 t 700 nerve fibers with a majority consisting of the myelinated type. This concentration of fibers is higher than the corney making human pulp an extremely pain sensitive structure. Sensory distribution of the trigeminal nerve is extensive as it supplies the ``central computer'' with information on pain, temperature and touch impulses from most of the head, skin, face, oral and nasal mucosa and dura mater.
*******************The axonal transport mechanism is capable of antegrade and retrograde flow, nourishing the periupheral branches with antegrade flow. Retrograde flow brings bacteria, viruses, endotoxins, and other degenerated compounds that are generated by devital teeth, N's, etc., to the central nervous system (CNS) and ultimately the main sensory trigeminal nucleus and spinal trigeminal nucleus. At some point, the CNS perceives a threat based on this feedback mechanism and goes on alert.
The multiplicy and overlapping peripheral innervation (dentinoblasts, pulpal fibers, periodevital ligament fibers) further complicates the picutre by converging as it approaches the CNS. An inflamed pulp from a hot tooth could be causing impulses that are below the threshold of pain perception of the patient. Add to this, a root canal and two NICO leasions from old third molar sites and the CNS, via cranbial nerve #5, is aroused it lets the patient know there is something wrong causing pain. The pain can be intermittend and excruciating like that of trigeminal neuralgia or vague and heavy, disguised as a headache, ear pain, sinus pain or non-specific jaw pain, troublesome enough to cause suicide.**********************
Localization of these pathological ``foci'' of pain-causing disease is best accomplished by anesthetic confirmation of ``neural therapy''. This technique utilizes local anesthetic, both vasoconstrictor and preservative free, that is injected into and about the periapical mucosal area of suspect N leasions or teeth in order to ascertain their effect on the patient's perception of pain. Approximately 1/2 cc of anesthetic solution is delivered to the suspected site via 30 gauge needle. If the pain is abolished, it is with high certainty that you have found the primary lesion. If only some of the pain has been attenuated, then continued testing in other regions both ipsilaterally and contralaterally in the arches is necessary. Be suspicious of any edentulous regions.
******************* You will discover every third molar area is usually associated with a NICO lesion prior to extraction.
W I S D O M T E E T H are misnamed; they are teeth of misfortune.**********************
References/I think I typed enough for now/gg
Posts: 9834 | From Washington State | Registered: Oct 2000
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Christopher J. Hussar, D.O., DDS is the only Lyme literate oral surgeon I know who is skilled to diagnose and treat both these jawbone/dental issues and the tick borne diseases.
-------------------- Neil Posts: 697 | From Tucson, AZ USA | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
I have worked in the dental and oral surgery field for over 35 years and am a certified oral surgery technician currently working for one of the top Oral Surgeons,MD in my area. I have a 17 y/o daughter w/L. I have never seen 1/10 of the disease of which is spoken about in the above article. PLEASE be aware of what you read. Unless you are a clinician and versed in the field please be careful of what you read as the truth.
Posts: 22 | From Hamburg NY | Registered: Oct 2010
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GiGi
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 259
posted
lorinda, I hope that you will make an effort to learn about this horrible misery people have to go through. I was one of them. It is the only reason that I was able to heal. I know many, many people over the last 12 years who had to endure similar years of horror before they had a chance at a life again.
Hope you take a better look over your remaining years in the dental arena, because I am absolutely certain that you are missing something big and bad.
It is not only true; it is also killing people, because often the damage cannot be undone.
Wishing the best for your daughter and you.
Posts: 9834 | From Washington State | Registered: Oct 2000
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