After three years, a diagnosis. Has anyone has osteomyelitis of the jaw?

[OnionPatch]

Three years ago I had pain in a tooth that had given me trouble for years. X-Rays showed nothing wrong with it. It had already had 2 apicoectomies (yes, two!). The dentists were reluctant to do anything more or even pull it, since it looked as if nothing was wrong. Finally, after a year of pain, and the development of constant sinus drainage on that side, I pretty much demanded that they just pull it. They did and it turned out it was cracked. The crack had been there a long time because they said the margins of the crack were eroded and some of the bone around the crack was eaten away. They cleaned the socket, put some bone graft material in it and that was that. Except that it hurt so bad I couldn't go without Vicoden for a week. Months later I asked them to take the graft out, it hurt so badly but they said to give it time. Meanwhile, I had two sinus surgeries on that same side. I was convinced the congestion and drainage was related to the tooth/socket, but no one took that seriously. Long story short...another sinus surgery, with no improvement. Now, I'm seeing a very good maxillofacial surgeon who has taken a bone biopsy of the area of the missing tooth/bone graft and found that I have a bone infection there and that some of the graft material has never been absorbed into bone, even after two years. He wants to be conservative and try antibiotics for six weeks before surgery. I have no faith that will help, I've been on numerous rounds of them over the last few years and they didn't help at all. Oh, and my surgeon says the sinus drainage is almost certainly from the bone infection right under the sinus. I think I'll end up having surgery and they'll have to remove all the old graft material, etc. I have never heard of this happening to anyone and I just wondered if anyone here has gone through this. How long did it take to get better? What was done? Is there anything I can do to help my body fight this infection along with the treatment my surgeon is prescribing? Were you able to get a tooth implant eventually? I've felt like total crap for three years now and wonder if this isn't related to the flare up of arthritis I've had the last year or so. Anyway, I'd like to hear from you if you have any experience with this kind of thing. Thanks.

[elleng]

1. Not I, and I assume you've already googled, but lots of comments:

http://www.healthcentral.com/chronic-pain/c/question/664343/48878/

Best of luck.

[OnionPatch]

2. Yep thanks. I did read that thread clear through.

Some of it was kind of scary but some people there said they did improve after surgery to remove the dead/infected bone. I thought it would be good to be able to talk to anyone here at DU that might have gone through this.

[trud]

3. I am late to this thread

Onion, have you taken Fosamax or similar meds? They can cause something called jaw death.

How are you doing now? Finding a good doc is half the battle. Hang in there.

[Warpy]

4. Your rounds of antibiotics have likely been a week or two at a time

In order to touch infection in the bone, they have to be taken for six weeks to several months at a crack, depending on which bone is infected.

You're finally getting the right treatment. Now stock up on yogurt with live cultures to eat every day to reduce the effects of antibiotics on your lower gut.

As the infection is slowly treated, the pain should eventually lessen. Until then, get some pain medication along with OTC anti inflammatory drugs like Motrin. Use the strong stuff when you can't stand it any more.

Good luck with this. Once the infection has been taken care of, the surgeon will have a better idea how much healthy bone there is for him to work with.

Doing surgery before the infection has been cleared up doesn't have a great success rate, as you've already discovered. Conservative treatment with a long course of antibiotics is really the way to go.