i just found two canals on a lower premolar that i’m in the middle of doing, #45. do you remember MC hammer and those pants he used to wear? big and puffy on top, then tappering into two skinny little legs? that’s what this configuration is like, lots of pulp tissue, too. i loaded them up with CaOH and i’m going to finish the case on tuesday. the tooth no longer hurts her and is functional, but she complains of “pressure” and “fullness”. do hear that complaint sometimes?

that should be in the official root canal configuration nomenclature. “blunderbuss apex”. “ribbon-shaped canals” “MC hammer-pants configuration”.

she called on friday, three days after i opened up the tooth. she didn’t say anything about the gums, just “pressure in the tooth”. i finished the endo yesterday, and when i re-examined her before i started there was no swelling or fistula, she said the tooth was just “sore”. i didn’t prescribe abx because the tooth was vital, and i told her to take up to 3 OTC advil for the pain every 4-6 hours. the endo came out pretty well, fill looks good and i spent a good 45 minutes irrigating with NaOCl so the canal’s pretty clean.

i also suspected some dential hypersensitivity on the #44, as she has quite a bit of recession here, esp at the buccal. i diagnosed the #45 with irreversible pulpitis at the emergency visit because when i pulp tested it with the endo ice, she jumped out of the chair and the pain lingered for quite a while. i placed some gluma on the #44, hopefully she feels better soon.

any advice in general?

in my office’s neighborhood, every day is a full moon.