Hello all

I am new to the forum. By way of introduction, I am not currently an oral cancer patient nor a survivor; I am in the "curious, frightened and frustrated" category...

I know no one here can diagnose me, and I think I'm doing a decent job of trying to get some answers from professionals, but I am hoping to solicit some input from you.

A brief overview/history -- I am 45, female, a recent ex-smoker (a whopping 4 months so it doesn't count, really), never a drinker of note and not a particularly heavy smoker but I smoked for 21 years so I think the heaviness factor is moot. I am HPV negative. I have no history of cancer in my family, but I understand oral cancer doesn't have much of a genetic precursor.

I also have a history of really bad teeth. Owing to some family trauma in those early years in which you sprout those new adult chiclet looking teeth, I didn't see a dentist til I was an adolescent. I'm not sure that's to blame for the years upon years of fillings and infections and root canals but I always feel it important to put the disclaimer out there (to perfect strangers, no less) that while I've been a dumba** about smoking, I always brushed and flossed and had regular checkups.

Ok, enough blah blah blah. I recently completed two root canals; one left me with some intermittent parasthesia and a nasty abrasion on my gum. I had the Oral CDX brush test (at my insistence) and it came back potentially dysplastic. DDS sent me to an oral surgeon who pronounced the brush path report unremarkable and didn't see any spot to biopsy (to be fair, like the squeaking noise your car makes only when it's nowhere near the mechanic, the abrasion was gone by the time I saw him). The parasthesia has subsided somewhat but I have two slightly mobile teeth near the abrasion. DDS and oral surgeon both attribute it to grinding my teeth and high spots owing to two crowns (and malocclusion owing to a couple of newly yanked molars). Prior to this, I've never been a grinder...

Fast forward 6 weeks and I have a lump next to a molar (in between tooth and cheek). Near as I can tell, it's pink and not roughed up and it's very squishy and moveable. This molar is behind the molar which was recently pulled (significant infection, failed root canal, apico not an option). The lump has neither increased nor decreased in size in the past few days.

I am experiencing intermittent pain but not ouchy abscessed tooth pain, more of a fullness, a feeling of heat and an occasional feeling of stuffiness in my ear (though it's intermittent). I have been feeling some burning sensations on my tongue but they come and go. I saw the DDS today, he felt the lump and said it's evidence of some infection. X-rays showed nothing, or at least nothing that he saw, but he claims infection can be "hiding." The tooth is mobile (which I didn't know) - he found this bothersome but said it could be the infection... or some loss of bone structure supporting the tooth.

I saw my gyn yesterday (unrelated) and she checked my neck and said I have no swollen nodes. I have no facial swelling and no other symptoms. I'm not overly tired (I work full time and have two young kids, so tired is tired) and I feel fine otherwise. But I have to admit, I'm getting a touch freaked out. I can't really justify complaining about being sick of dental work in light of the amazing, heroic and incredible battles you all are facing and have faced... so excuse me if I sound whiny. I'm not sure at this point if I'm losing my resilience (ok, it's wimpy but I've been "abused" in dental chairs fairly regularly since I was 14 and my dental visits never produce a shred of happy news) or if something's honestly wrong.

I don't know why I'm hyper aware of oral cancer - could be my history of smoking, could be the publicity (here in Chicago) about Grant Achatz, could be what I've learned reading here -- and one things that seems to be a constant is that this consistently gets misdiagnosed... and missed altogether (if you have read Grant Achatz' story, his string of dental and GP misses will break your heart).

I asked my DDS point blank today if I should call an ENT and he insists (though meekly) that he wants me to see an endo. This confuses me, as I have no evidence (nor does he, from the xrays) that the tooth is dying... He put me on clindamycin and who knows, maybe all I have is an abscess that no one can see. I hate to be a hypochondriac or someone who just is simply taking her ball and bat and going home because she's a big fat baby about additional dental work.

Just unsure, I guess, of what I ought to do next. Perhaps a therapist and soft restraints...