15 Year Old With Dark Areas On Panoramic Xray

My daughter who is 15 has been complaining of pain for about 6 months now. We thought when she said her jaw hurt she was reffering to TMJ problems as several of us in the family have. Come to find out she is having pain in the lower jaw closer to under her month where the lips would end. She has pain on both sides but more on the left. 

her fathers dentist did a pan in Dec. and didn't see anything. I took her to my dentist 2 weeks ago and she explained the pain. My dentist took a pan and didn't like what she saw. So she ordered a new cartridge for the xray delveloper and took another pan a week later. She referred her to see an oral surgeon. The pan shows two areas of darkness in the area my daughter was complaining about on both the right and left sides with the left side appearing to be worse.They acutally look like dark areas with several smaller darker spots within the area. These show in her bone and not the teeth. This falls under medical and not dental because it doesn't affect the teeth her primary care physician told us. 

My question is .. what in the world could this be? She does have some TMJ symptoms but the TMJ is alot higher than these areas? Does anyone have any suggestions as to what shows up dark in xrays ? could it be a type of bone cancer or oral cancer? Thanks for any input it will be at least 6 weeks before she gets in to see the oral surgeon. As he is the only one around here that takes her insurance.  

 Take her to a doctor you trust and ask them to take some blood for bone cancer.  It could just be the TMJ or it could be infection.  My friend had bone cancer and her dentist  told her it was not so.  I sent her to a specialist and he immediately sent her to the oncologist.  Better to be safe than sorry.  She is young so catching things early is good.  Does not mean it is cancer but you are getting a second opinion. Take care!

On 3/3/2007 Tiffysmom wrote:

My daughter who is 15 has been complaining of pain for about 6 months now. We thought when she said her jaw hurt she was reffering to TMJ problems as several of us in the family have. Come to find out she is having pain in the lower jaw closer to under her month where the lips would end. She has pain on both sides but more on the left. 

her fathers dentist did a pan in Dec. and didn't see anything. I took her to my dentist 2 weeks ago and she explained the pain. My dentist took a pan and didn't like what she saw. So she ordered a new cartridge for the xray delveloper and took another pan a week later. She referred her to see an oral surgeon. The pan shows two areas of darkness in the area my daughter was complaining about on both the right and left sides with the left side appearing to be worse.They acutally look like dark areas with several smaller darker spots within the area. These show in her bone and not the teeth. This falls under medical and not dental because it doesn't affect the teeth her primary care physician told us. 

My question is .. what in the world could this be? She does have some TMJ symptoms but the TMJ is alot higher than these areas? Does anyone have any suggestions as to what shows up dark in xrays ? could it be a type of bone cancer or oral cancer? Thanks for any input it will be at least 6 weeks before she gets in to see the oral surgeon. As he is the only one around here that takes her insurance.