Afib and Bad root canal?

When I moved to Florida about 5 years ago my chronic Afib started. A little prior to that in New York I had a root canal in my lower left jaw, tooth 19 or 18 a molar I think which is over the big nerve there. After seeing my dentist and an endodontist and an oral surgeon, they suggest an implant and removal of the old tooth and cap for about $4,000 so far. They think the nerve tip was missed and I now have an infection and/or bone loss. I am wondering if a bad root canal could cause Afib?

Howie:
I had a bad root canal and it was evident when the dentist went to put back in a temporary filling and it caused pain and obvious remaining sensation at that point. There was still a remaining nerve tip there and the endodontist had to repeat the procedure to remove the remaining nerve.
As far as a bad root canals causing afib, the stress of the whole thing might, if you are one in whom stress is a trigger?!!

Pam

It's funny you should mention this. I had a root canal in January/February of this year. It went horribly and even though I went on and had the crown done, etc. I STILL have sensation in that tooth. I just recently complained to my dentist that I didn't think the root canal was totally successful. It is also a lower back molar.

A few weeks ago I started thinking about my AFIB and how it started in earnest about April. Is there some connection? I have no idea but if I knew for sure I'd be back in a heartbeat to have this tooth pulled, despite the $1700 that I've spent to "save" it!!!!!!

Interesting thread and definitely food for thought.

Cathy

Its much too early to draw any conclusions but this might be interesting. I started with a new dentist recently and he immediately said that one of my wisdom teeth was in a very bad way and should have been removed years ago. He took it out and (sorry for the graphic description) it was really rotten and must have been feeding all sorts of muck into my system. This was on 7 November and, since then, no PACs or anything. As is usual with AF, it will probably go pear shaped again tomorrow but who knows?

I had 2 root canals done couple years back....unfortunately at same time as one was considered an emergency... you would hav ethought he would leave other till later but he didn't........ i was a bag of nerves after got me really tensed up....it did have me in tears after sitting there for 40 minutes to me wasn't right.


I swore once had them done i'd never do that again.... one of my replaced crowns had to come out in les than 18 months was waste of time as the root he left behind wasnt big enough.

I had spoken then to a dentist friend and also read on net that many root canal jobs are waste of time. That to much interferance with a tooth can make tooth worthless. I think they think worth saving as they get paid more... here in Uk we dont pay so much for the job, but still suffer.

Changed my dentist since and id rather have removals than go through that again.

Howie - this possibility is recognized by holistic dentists and almost a certainty. However, it is directly opposite traditional dentistry and considered quackery by most.

However, the holistic dentists feel that infection left at the tip of a root as in root canal treatment creates a situation called cavitation where the bacteria (anerobic) meaning they can live without oxygen - reside there and proliferate. The vagus nerve is connected to several areas of the jaw and teeth - I forget which ones now - but the possibility is there.

The options are few and expensive. Finding holistic dentists is worse than finding a holistic doctor. I know that one treatment is to remove the periodontal membrane from the extraction site - difficult and tedious and then treating the extraction site to kill residual bacteria. This also leads to necrosis and bone loss which is what you describe.

I'm really sorry to hear you have this problem. It's not going to be nice, but you have to get that infection out of there and antibiotics are not the answer.

You may be able to read more about this by doing a google search and typing in Hal Huggins, DDS. He was a dentist in Colorado who eventually lost his license in the US because he was bucking the mainstream when it came to mercury fillings.

However, I do believe he is also talking about root canals on his web page. If not, just type in dental cavitation and or cavitation and root canals... you'll find a lot.

I'll do some searching as well and see if I can find some information for you.

Jackie (Retired RDH)