Expert: Lawrence Spindel DDS, www.lspindeldds.com - 12/9/2009

Question
Dr.Spindel, I am experiencing gum pain above my #3 molar. No pain in tooth however,the tooth is capped. I am also experiencing daily tension type headaches. Could this be due to the tooth actually being infected? Thank you in advance for your reply.

Answer
Dear Robert,

The pain you are experiencing could indeed be caused by an infected tooth. If a pulp of a maxillary tooth is in the process of dying or has become infected then a patient can experience pain above it. Sometimes a patient will also complain of headaches.

What I advise you to do is to go to a dentist and have a couple of radiographs taken of the teeth in the upper Right quadrant and to have a thorough diagnosis, in order to rule out a dental problem.

Patients can have symptoms such as yours from other problems including a sinus infection, TMD, Headaches and Trigeminal Neuralgia.  I have written some short articles that you may want to look at that may have information that you may find useful. Just copy and paste the URL's into your browser.

http://www.lspindeldds.com/dental_pain

http://www.lspindeldds.com/cracked_tooth_syndrome2

http://www.lspindeldds.com/diagnostic_tools_for_testing_teeth2

I hope this information is helpful and please feel free to contact me again with any future dental questions.