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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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@arbez I went through something similar. I had broken my front teeth as a kid, and as an older adult, I had a 4 unit bridge and every tooth was present and all had old root canals. A root canal failed and I thought it was a sinus problem and it had gone on for months. When I felt a soft spot in my hard palate, I knew what it was. It ate a hole in my jaw bone and the tooth didn’t loosen or fall out because it was part of a bridge. I had oral surgery and apicoectomy with bone graft. A couple years later, another root canal began to fail. I had all 4 removed and replaced with Zirconium implants and a new Zirconium bridge. That also improved my health and my asthma got better. I am somewhat reactive to metals in my body and all that prior infection has been cleared. It was a long expensive process, but it was worth it.
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2 Reactions@jenniferhunter You went thru a lot! I'm sure it was very expensive. Nice to meet someone else who had infection eat thru bone and wind up in their hard palate. You give me hope this will come to an end. Just hoping there isn't a hole into my R maxillary sinus that needs to be fixed.
@arbez I had a very good oral surgeon and he got everything cleared up. It is very expensive to extract teeth and get implants. When I added up the oral surgery, the implants, the dental work and the dental lab, it was about $5000 per tooth replaced. The extraction hurt a lot for a few weeks. I am glad I had this done. I had teeth abscess when I was a kid, so that is how I knew what was wrong. It would create a blister on the gums in front up so high that you don’t see it, so it is easy to miss. That was there too when I got the soft spot in the hard palate. It would have been better to replace it all instead of try to save the first failed tooth with an apicoectomy, but I couldn’t get my head around that thought and had been trying to save my teeth for years with replacing the bridgework.
I hope you will get a good recovery. My implants are Zeramex which are manufactured in Switzerland and are one of 2 manufacturers of zirconium implants that are the best available according to my oral surgeon. They have a website.
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2 Reactions@jenniferhunter Thank you so much for the information and encouragement, appreciate it so much!
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