Root Canal Infections Linked To Sore Joints etc???

Equanimity

Hi there

I am just wondering if anyone has ever heard of anything like this?
Before I continue, im not trying to blame anyone for bad dentistry or anything like that. I am just suffering a lot & trying to find answers.

I had a baby in January & about 3 months after delivery all my joints started to really ache & it got to a point where getting out of bed was a difficult task. It would take ages to open my feet out so I could walk. I did some online digging & found a lot of women with the same problem. All bloods were done for arthritis etc. & nothing showed up at all. Anyway life is tough when your entire body is in pain. To add to it, I had a three year old crown break while pregnany & this was starting to niggle at me - the last couple of months.
I didn't get it seen to back then as with the pregnancy my gums just poured with blood non stop when even slightly touched so I thought it best to wait.
Anyhow (am getting to my point!) I never thought the two could be connected. I Know my tooth is in bits & I suspect needs pulling but I came across quite a few references to root canal infections being possibly linked to aching joints. Very interesting to me seeing as I have a root canal in need of urgent assistance & also am in bits with aching joints. I am not exagerating the pain I have just walking or doing simple things.

Anyway I found some mentions of a connections. Some are more about the actual root canal procedure being bad & some are about if you have an infected root canal. Again I have no beef with dentists or am not trying to blame my problem on the nice dentist who did my root canal three years ago - I did sign a form that told me there was a chance it may not work.

This guy (Dr George Meinig) referes to it & other illnesses. The article is at http://www.healthy.net/scr/article.aspx?Id=6436.

I am just interested to hear if anyone has heard of this at all??
I was at the dentist today - she dismissed it as a theory but then again she didn't even give me so much as a cup of water to rinse my mouth after she had been drilling in it!
She said the tooth is fecked & will be removed in two weeks. So, I am half afraid to get my hopes but am so hoping this theory is true as I may get relief from pain when the tooth is removed!

Sorry for long post - just wanted to explain!

Thanks
Eq

helimachoptor

Op im going to lock this til the morning when I can get to a laptop as it's bordering on medical advice. If one of the other mods deem this ok they can unlock it.

Big_G

Hal Huggins has had his dental license revoked in Cololrado. Enough said.

Sorry but your infection is unlikely to have any bearing on sore joints. Most likely this is a consequence of pregnancy when both hormones and the immune system go a bit haywire for about 9 months and sometimes long afterwards. I think you should talk to a gp or have a specialist referral.

Big_G

Thread opened at OP request. Let's keep it civil people.

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Focal infection theory is mostly not held as true in reputable scientific circles (you always get a few quacks off the reservation for personal gain), however the power of placebo is real, believe and you may get some relief with your other symptoms for a while. But placebo works of any intervention, lots are more reversable than extractions.

Equanimity

Hiya

I just wanted to clarify what my post was about as I am relatively new to boards.ie & it seems to have become a little controversial!
I am not in any way seeking dental/medical advice.
I am also not supporting claims from the likes of Dr George Meinig or Hal Huggins – I simply came across their claims of the link between root canals & illnesses. I came across Meinig’s Root Canal Cover-Up book & I just thought it must have been discussed at some point. I saw the book on am**on & its customer reviews & was surprised at people’s response to it. Was there something in it or is it simply a placebo effect? I wondered what people thought about it or if it’s complete pants in terms of health revelations. This is why I am posting in the dental forum because I would expect people related to this industry would frequent it.


My own tooth will be coming out soon & if all of a sudden I was 100% improved I would find this to be a little more than a coincidence. I am pretty sure it won’t though – if only it were that easy! BTW My root canal is infected because my crown broke from eating hard sweets & I left it untreated for 6 months so am not thinking the actual root canal could possibly cause this – just my leaving it to become infected so it's not an attack on dentistry!

I don’t understand the problem with asking it this is normal or nuts as a person from a non dental background.



Thanks

Eq:)

btkm8unsl0w5r4

See here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focal_infection

Equanimity

Sorry Fitzgime, was sending my last one & now just read yours.
Thanks for that. Yes I would imagine the power of placebo is unbelieveable.
That's been proved over & over. It makes a lot of sense. Just as I said above when I read the book's reviews they almost reminded me of reading from cult followers! THey just seemed to be overly supporting it. Hmmm....

btkm8unsl0w5r4

These "holistic" guys prey on the vunerable. When you have a chronic condition, pain or illness you want a cure, you are willing to try almost anything to get it and it at this point the quack jumps in and blinds you with pseudoscientific garbage and unverifiable anecydote, in the confusion you usually loose a bunch of money at some point. Like religious faith proof is not necessary and usually these topics do not lend themselves to ethical controlled trials. It sound however like you have seen through the flim flam.

If the tooths got to go, its got to go. So be it. Maybe you will get symptomatic relief but the evidence at the moment says this will be coincidence which when it happen always seems unlikely (by definition), its the linking of cause and effect when coincidences happen that lead to these theories in the first place, and the conincidence that this has happened to others is what perpetuates the theory.

Oral Surgeon

Jadiel Petite Pantsuit wrote: »

These "holistic" guys prey on the vunerable. When you have a chronic condition, pain or illness you want a cure, you are willing to try almost anything to get it and it at this point the quack jumps in and blinds you with pseudoscientific garbage and unverifiable anecydote, in the confusion you usually loose a bunch of money at some point. Like religious faith proof is not necessary and usually these topics do not lend themselves to ethical controlled trials. It sound however like you have seen through the flim flam.

If the tooths got to go, its got to go. So be it. Maybe you will get symptomatic relief but the evidence at the moment says this will be coincidence which when it happen always seems unlikely (by definition), its the linking of cause and effect when coincidences happen that lead to these theories in the first place, and the conincidence that this has happened to others is what perpetuates the theory.

Fitzgeme- did you write this?? The words are big and the spelling is quite good too (but not perfect...):D:D

Equanimity

Just updating...

Tooth has been removed - not my choice but there was nothing the dentist could do with it. I had left it untreated for a while.
Sore joints seem to have gone away.
It wasn't like the next day or anything. Just one morning a few days later i noticed it.
Normally my hands & feet were in agony each morning. It would take a few minutes to straighten out my feet to walk properly when I got out of bed. My hands are sore all the time - as when someone squeezes your hands tightly in a hand shake & the bones rub together. It has been months of serious pain & it seems to be gone.

Am not saying the theory is correct as I have no proof and no clue about it but am just saying it's an interesing one all the same...

DaveTwenty7

Hi OP
I suspect the sore joints etc were linked to the pregnancy (my wife suffered the same thing after giving birth to our baby girl) from the research we did we found it was most likely due to a hormone that's realized(can't remember the name at the minute) which loosens the joints of the pelvis so there is some "give" as the baby is being delivered. Unfortunately the body has evolved enough to limit the hormone delivery to just the pelvis and all the joints become less stable. This can lead to slight injuries due to over flexion but the is also pain associated to the joints re-stabilizing