Thanks for the hug, hyke
What comes first and what later? For me it is my bad teeth causing TN, but who knows, it may be a two way thing.
I think you're right, here.In my case, the dentist took X-rays often enough though (in later years, I stopped bothering him at all, unless i had clear signs of decay, cos I knew the story. and then i stopped bothering him, even when i had clear decay, because he'd always engage in these futile efforts to save the affected tooth, which would just go on crumbling whatever he did. Some of them didn't need extracting, in the end, they just fell out, piece by piece, root and all. What's more, I have a phobia of needles, which wasn't getting any better with repeated exposure to needles-in-the-gum ). The X-rays never showed up any decay.
Oddly enough, the decay would always begin (or an absess would come up) sometime
after the tooth finally stopped hurting. Which suggests to me that the nerve was dead. Indeed , I was told as much, by one dentist. The tooth in question was OK, but the dental nerve was dead, hence the abscess
I spent ages and ages searching the web for some kind of explanation for this pattern. I finally lit upon the info that if dead dental nerve isn't removed, it will rot and cause absesses and/or tooth decay (which is pretty much what that dentist had told me)
That much is non-controversial. But still I couldn't get any dentist or doctor to agree that my nerves were, somehow, getting destroyed. Because there's "no evidence for any connnection between TN and nerve damage" according to those bastard text books.
Hoever that dead nerve theoryof mine is backed up by the fact that on one occasion, after experiencing shockingly bad, but mercifully brief (only lasted a few hours) episode of TN in my cheek during the night, I woke up with Bell's Palsy. That is, the entire right side of my face was paralysed. The nerve mostly recovered (my face is still a bit lopsided). But it's yet more evidence for a connction btween TN and nerve damage, in my case , hmm? And rather more direct evidence.
Unfortunately, I only ever had so many teeth and nerves ( The usual number. Oh! plus one extra tootht hat was extracted ealry on, just because it wa extra.) So I suppose my results couldn't ever be considered statistically significant, once added to all the other non-evidence that never got recorded because it didn't make sense
But it covinces me. And whilst doing my research, I noticed plenty of dentists leaping to (
somewhat less contoversial) conclusions about the etioloogy of their patients dental decay on much more slender evidence than this (Example: patient went on holiday and did lot of swimming in an overchlorinated spanish swimming pool prior to this decay. I therfore put this forward as evidence that dental decay can caused by chlorine. Seriously. I'm not saying he was wtrong. But...they call that
science? ) And getting published by respectable periodicals. *sigh*
Me? I'm just a dumb patient. What would I know?
I've got bad teeth. My dentist told me when I was twenty, that the only reason I was without dentures was my precise brushing, because my teeth were crap.
Still have most of them. But, for me there is a clear link between TN and infected roots.
My TN will most of the times not improve without a rootcanal treatment. First times there was nothing to be seen on X-rays, so I walked around with it for years. Then my then dentist said he'd just open the thing up do a rootcanal treatment anyway. Because he knew me as not a complainer by default. It was badly infected. And he stuck to that, when I came with similar complaints.
Later I had another dentist. Same story, but he was not that much listening to me. Until the day I came into his room, and before I sat in the chair I told him he was going to do a rootcanal treatment today.
He just did it. 
And then was shocked how bad it was, prescribing me antibiotics on top of it.
This time it is only my neck-muscles, and no teethproblem causing the latest attack. Maybe I'm wrong. Dentist has scheduled some repair anyway. So, who knows it may help a little extra.
That there is a link between TN and teeth is logical. All the nerves of your teeth come together in the trigeminal nerve. What comes first and what later? For me it is my bad teeth causing TN, but who knows, it may be a two way thing.
