Amoxicillin / dental question

[OhWhatAPalaver]

Dentist gave me amoxicillin on Thursday for infection under previously root canaled and crowned tooth. It has been three days and no change in pain so I stopped taking the amoxicillin and went back to the dentist today expecting her to give me different antibiotics but she didn't as I'm having bad diarrhoea and abdominal pain with the amoxicillin. She said next option is re-do root canal through the crown or extraction. Is she right in not giving more antibiotics? I'm worried the infection might get worse but she said it's low level inflammation/infection at the moment. Also I'm worried about taking more antibiotics anyway as I am paranoid about things like c.diff! I've had to take far too many antibiotics in the last few years and I'm worried that my body is getting worse at dealing with them and that I'm going to end up with another resistant infection. I got an ESBL urine infection from being catheterised after my c-section that required an inpatient stay, IV antibiotics and several courses of oral antibiotics, so I'm extremely wary of antibiotics and their effects.
The question is how to proceed. I don't know whether to just get the tooth taken out and risk having dry socket again (more antibiotics!!!) or to have root canal redone and go through several sessions of pain and discomfort only to have the possibility of it not working again. Feel like I'm between a rock and a hard place!

Which tooth is it? I had to get a retreatment done on a molar tooth where not all of the canals had been properly filled, and opted to see a private specialist because his success rates were much higher than a general dentist’s would be - my own dentist referred me to him. It cost a fortune but I still have the tooth. Root canal work shouldn’t be uncomfortable - if it is, ask for the anaesthetic topped up! - just boring and time-consuming in my experience.

Thanks for the reply, was your tooth crowned? My dentist said it will be really difficult to access the tooth now that it's crowned. She already had to mess around because the first time she packed it and came to fill it in there was still pain there and I ended up with antibiotics then as well as it wouldn't go away even though it was dressed and repacked. I thought it had gone after the first lot of antibiotics ages ago but since she crowned it the pain returned. It's been ten months of going back and forth to the dentist now! I think I might need a new dentist...

They will just drill through the crown, I think. If you’ve had so much trouble with it I would ask to be referred to an endodontist if (a) you want/need to keep the tooth, and (b) you can afford it. It sounds like the root treatment hasn’t got rid of all the problem in the first place. There could be a tiny wee canal that the dentist couldn’t see - the specialist will have a mega-powerful microscope.

Mine hadn’t been crowned, and was causing me no bother - it was done 20 years ago when I was at uni - and the problem came to light when I had an x-ray on the next door tooth which also needed root canal. For the two, done by the endodontist, then crowns, done by my own Dentist, it was the guts of £2,000. I had the root canals done over two appointments each, at 1h 45 minutes per appointment.

I feel like I know FAR too much about all this stuff! Hope you get things sorted. Toothache is the worst.

Ending a course of antibiotics is the worst thing to do if you are concerned about antibiotic resistant bacteria. You take the rest of the course AND go back if necessary (speaking from experience - tonsillitis with resistant bacteria for the first lot so I had to take both for a while). Your body doesn't get worse at dealing with them, it's the totally separate organisms (bacteria) that are resistant. After my bad experience with amoxicillin, my next bout of tonsillitis was completely cleared up by the same thing.

That said, I'd find a new dentist. It sounds dodgy that she didn't point out about finishing a course of antibiotics and if you're in repeated pain (10 months?!) I'd be concerned about her abilities. Also, if she really believed it to be bacterial she'd surely have given you a different antibiotic to destroy the evil infection. So it sounds like she was fobbing you off with unnecessary antibiotics (and thus increasing the risk of antibiotic resistance) whilst not dealing effectively with your pain.

I thought this too but the dentist said I can stop after 3 days if it was better but she prescribed a 5 day course. I stopped after 3 as no change in pain and I thought she'd give me different ones immediately as there would have been no gap between doses but she didn't. Maybe she was perhaps hoping it was bacteria but in fact it's her mistake?!

How are you doing today? My understanding is that antibiotics don’t work brilliantly on teeth that have had root canal, because the tooth is essentially dead/preserved with no living nerve or blood supply.

It's not constantly painful, it never was. It is incredibly sensitive though, particularly to heat or cold. It's stays sore for a while after brushing my teeth or having a cold drink particularly.
I'm going to get a second opinion from the dentist that my kids go to but they can't see me till 24th.

Thanks for asking btw

Glad you’re getting a second opinion. It sounds like there is still live nerve in there if it’s temperature sensitive, so maybe there is a tiny little canal branch that was missed.

I swear I read every single piece of information on root canals on the entire internet when I was going through mine. Don’t do that - I was honestly quite mad for a while.