Last week I learned I had what’s called a “lateral periodontal cyst”
between two of my front teeth that required surgery to remove. I’ve decided to
do a blog post because when I googled the condition almost nothing comes up. I
guess it must be fairly rare.
Symptoms: One of the problems with this condition
is there aren’t symptoms. My periodontist told me that the vast majority are
discovered only when they have broken through the bone structure between the
teeth and created horrible gum pockets. They can be detected with X-rays, but from
the little information I have gleaned, the cysts are most often found between the
front teeth, which are not usually X-rayed. My cyst is between tooth 9 (which
is the left front tooth) and 10.
However, in retrospect I can report two symptoms: first was the
feeling of having something stuck between these two teeth, like a piece of
straw, but nothing would be there. I have felt this intermittently for a couple
of years, but I really didn’t give it much thought.
Second, about eight months ago it felt as if someone had socked me
in the mouth. This has never happened to me, but the feeling was that all my
teeth, particularly the top front teeth, were aching. This lasted for a few
days. I had a regular dental cleaning not long after this happened so I remembered
to mention it to the hygienist. She said that this could be caused by grinding
your jaw or a sinus infection. I do tend to clench my jaw so it made sense that
this was the cause.
Three weeks ago the aching started again, and this time it didn’t go
away. After about a week I got a sharp pain centered on one of my front teeth
(#9) and the gum above it. It felt like a gum infection, so I waited a couple
of days because I had just been to my dentist for another regular visit and I
was a little irritated about having to go back. The gum pain eased over the
next couple of days, but the funny feeling in my tooth didn’t. It was very
sensitive when I bit into something. There were also a couple of small bumps on
the ridge above the front tooth and the one to the side. So I called my
dentist.
