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What appeared to be chronic sinusitis was actually tooth infection
Hi, this post is for the people searching for answers, and is intended to help those who may be in a situation similar to mine. The story is that I had functional sinus surgery four years ago, and immediately became very sick with what felt like a horrendous sinus infection. I was bed-ridden for three months, half my hair fell out, I had a fever every day. In addition to the sinus symptoms I also had a constant dull headache and intermittent excruciating head pains on the top of my head, blurry vision and sensitivity to light, a dry/sore throat. I saw five ENTs, two neurologists, three immunologists, two primary care physicians, a handful of physician assistants, a rheumatologist, a doctor who specialized in psychosomatic disorders, the top infectious disease doctor in my area, an infectious disease doctor at Mayo, a very expensive diagnostician, and a new allergy doctor. Not one of them had any idea what was wrong.
I had several doctors gaslight me about my symptoms, no one would address the daily fever. After a doctor saw me and decided they couldn't help me, I got no direction. Mayo was actually the worst. He did no testing, aside from taking my temp, which at the time was normal, then told me I didn't have an infection.
Every time I took antibiotics I felt tremendous relief in every single symptom, but the relief wouldn't last longer than a week or two. I knew I was fixable, but I couldn't find anyone to help me get a diagnosis. I knew it was an infection, because I know exactly how infection feels in my body. The worst diagnosis I got was "you're breathing different after the surgery, just get on with your life". I couldn't because any physical activity flared my symptoms and caused me to return to bed.
Things turned a corner a year ago when my dentist noticed I had a root canal (front four teeth have root canals) that was infected. I got it fixed and felt better for a couple weeks. A year later another was infected, and once again I felt better briefly. I went to an oral surgeon who suspected my root canals had failed, and I got that opinion backed up by a second oral surgeon. Turns out there's a constant leak of bacteria from my root canals into my bloodstream and the tissue in my mouth, nose, and cheeks. I have septicemia (bacteria in my blood) which caused my feeling of being sick, and I have cellulitis in my nasal cavity. I didn't understand there was a difference between the nasal cavity and the sinuses until the oral surgeon explained it. He said he's seen other people like me, with illness from dental infection.
The cure for me is to have my two front teeth pulled, and have implants placed, the process for which will take more than a year since I've had so much bone loss in my upper jaw due to the infection. It's thought that during my sinus surgery there was trauma to the roots of the front teeth, probably cracking them, and causing bacteria to stream out constantly.
This post is meant to help anyone who can't find answers for what seems to be a sinus infection, but it isn't.
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@bolso1 I guess they are Zirconium dioxide aka Zirconia, but that is a mouthful to say. They are ceramic.
I'm in the middle of this same type of thing. Have been complaining about R sided sinus problems for a couple years. Better w antibiotics. About a year ago developed a bump in the roof of my mouth. ENT performed biopsy for possible cancer. Wasn't cancer, was inflammation. When bump returned 10 days after surgery I asked dentist about it. He thought I might have an abscess in R upper back molar. The abscess was confirmed by endodontist. He found I'm missing bone where infection has eaten through it to form sinus tract into my hard palate. A root canal was done. Still issues, so had incision & drainage of sinus tract. Infection still present so just had another root canal in same tooth in attempt to fix (can't do apicoectomy as roots too close to maxillary sinus). If this doesn't work then he will remove tooth. I hope that'll be the end of it and I don't end up needing sinus surgery or oral surgeon intervention. Wish someone had considered my tooth could be the cause before the infection got this bad.
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1 ReactionI was fortunate in that the radiologist who did my CT scan suggested my chronic sinusitis originated from the root of a tooth from an old root canal. I had been sick for 4 months. An oral surgeon told me I could either have it extracted or see an endodontist to try to save it. I did the later and tooth and sinus have been well for the past 10 months. He did the root canal over. He said it’s a risk with root canal teeth. I never had tooth pain because there is no nerve.
@con123 I forgot to mention I had FESS surgery also to clear out and open up the sinus.
Thank you. Great lesson for all of us!
OMG. I am sorry this happened to you. I have been dealing with something similar I believe. For over a year, I have had ringing/hissing and pressure in my head. So bad at time it causes vertigo and nauseous all vomiting. No fever or actual pain. I had even test you could imagine. MRI and MRA of the brain saw the ENT twice diagnosed me with meniere's disease. I was on amoxicillin 3 x. Vertigo medicine nauseous medicine as well. Everyone was just trying to manage my symptoms. Then I was talking to my daughters orthodontist and he asked me to get a dental xray. He found I needed a root canal in a tooth that I had a crown placed 2 years before. So I went right to my dentist and once they removed the crown, you could "smell" the dead tooth underneath. It was disgusting, now remember I had no jaw or tooth or gum pain no swelling nothing. The dentist extracted the tooh right there, put me on clindamycin for 2 weeks and all my symptoms were going away. I didn't want to jump out the window anymore. But it only lasted for 3 weeks. I was so upset and disappointed. But went back to the orthodontist and got a second xray just to be safe, and geeze low an behold there was still a piece of the tooth root in there. So I went to a different dental surgeon to have that removed and to have the whole socket scraped out and had to add a bone graft. I am now back on antibiotics and healing up well. We will see of this insane infection is finally gone. Yes a tooth infection underneath a crown caused me so many problems and no doctor found it. It was because of a conversation I had with a great dentist. He saved my life.
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1 Reaction@rhuber2007 I'm surprised a dentist did work with infection present. They usually give antibiotics to clear it up before they do anything. There's a risk of infection getting into the bloodstream.
@carol1024 I've now had 2 root canals in same tooth and an incision and drainage of the sinus tract into my hard palate. I was told (and have also read) that it's very difficult for antibiotics to treat an infected tooth because of limited blood supply to the area. They have to address the infected tooth or infection won't go away no matter what antibiotics you take. That has absolutely been true in my case.
@carol1024 i didn't even know that was possible. My guess was he just wanted it out and we possible shouldn't have waited on the root canal even with no pain. I shouldn't have had the crown placed without doing the root canal work. That's also on the dentist.
@arbez very scary
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