Toothache

Last week sometime I started feeling a strange sensation around one of my teeth. It’s in a part of my mouth that my dentist has been keeping an eye on, since some of the work is pretty old and can potentially break down. The new sensation isn’t exactly pain, not really a toothache, but the gum and lip in front of that tooth are numb. It feels like Novocain wearing off. It’s pretty uncomfortable, and since I don’t have much feeling there, I tend to bite it while I’m eating, making my lip sore and swollen.

I went to the dentist first thing Monday morning so he could fix me up. Only problem, he couldn’t find anything wrong! The tooth in question already has a root canal, and there are no signs of cracks or abscess. My description sounds to him like there’s something impinging on a main nerve, but he couldn’t see anything in the x-rays and didn’t want to just start digging around.

We called my doctor, who’s now puzzling over it too. Can it be from new lesions in my neck or spine? She didn’t see anything on the PET scan that would cause this, but she can’t explain it either. So she’s going to schedule me for an MRI of my head and neck to try to get more information: yet another medical procedure to attend to.