Hey @theFury,
I’m Merl from the modsupport team. Both @Jules and @Isaiah_40_31 do such an excellent job I don’t usually make any comments, just come through and read the posts, but when I saw your OPG and post, I had to share some of my knowledge/experiences.
Yes, I can. Both dentists and orthodontists primarily focus on teeth and your OPG shows dental issues on both your upper and lower jaw. That’s their focus point.
In my former life (before my own health went sideways) I ran an accommodation program. I had a wheelchair bound man living in one house, he had a lot of health issues, some alcohol related. Because he was known by the medical fraternity, many of his concerns were minimised as ‘alcohol related’. One day he was in agony, holding his jaw. His tongue, to me, seemed swollen, so I called a Dr. They minimised it all again, but his symptoms were not normal.
The following day I took him to the big city hospital, they took x-rays, turns out both of his lower wisdom teeth were growing sideways, compressing all of his teeth from both sides. No wonder he was in agony. The medicos had already made a judgement, alcohol, ‘He’s just an alcoholic…’ and sure he had a drinking problem, but this was beyond alcohol. I can see that same sideways wisdom tooth issue in your scans. Now, the wisdom tooth on your scan, on my right, has no molar present, so the pressure on that side would probably be less. But on the left, that wisdom tooth looks fairly close to those roots.
Many, many moons ago (when I was a child) I had a top jaw similar to yours, with that one tooth growing almost out of the side of my gum. The dentist sent me to an orthodontist and braces were recommended. But to pull that tooth back into alignment they had to extract the good tooth behind it. Looking back now I think the orthodontist could see $$$$, but it was agreed to proceed. I had braces for 4 years, but my pain/symptoms continued. It was all minimised.
Add 10yrs and numerous medico opinions, I’m driving down the highway one day and the lights went out, I couldn’t see. This incident f.i.n.a.l.l.y. made the medico investigate a bit more and they found a cause, a little nasty growing right in the centre of my brain. And the medicos turned around and said (and I quote) “Why didn’t you speak up sooner…?” I wanted to scream. I had spoken up, but nobody was listening. They had been very quick to have a guess or make ‘pseudo’ diagnosis based on their own judgements. For those of us with rare conditions, this is actually much more common than the medicos like to admit. Sometimes the easiest answer is the quickest answer, even if it is wrong.
So, ‘Can I believe…?’, Ohh yes, I certainly can.
Merl from the Modsupport Team
but that doctor meant anxiety).
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