P0117-SES Light won't go away

[michaelmotor]

Was driving my 2002 Nissan Sentra to work everyday from August 2013 till about November when I decided to parked and drive my truck to work for a while. Fast forward to about mid January 2014 and found that the thermostat went bad as I was driving to work and my Sentra overheated. SES (Service Engine Soon) dash light was on and when I pulled the DTC code, I got P0117-Engine Coolant Temperature Circuit Low Input. When my dash gauge was indicating that I was overheating, I also noticed that my heater only produced luke warm heat at the vents (found out I was low on coolant too).

Okay, so on February 2, 2014 I swapped the thermostat and car is running fine again; however, the code has not gone away .... I have been driving the Sentra to work everyday since then and I have been watching the temperature gauge to notice if the needle stays in the range it has always stayed in when driving the car in the past (and the needle has stayed in the range that I have observed in the past when the car did not overheat). This leads me to believe that the Temperature sensor on the engine block is working fine since the temperature gauge is not showing that the Sentra is overheating. Further, My heater is working fine (no luke warm heat coming out of the vents).

Okay, So my question is... when a P0117 code is setting off the SES dash light to turn on:
1) Does the car need to be driven around for a while to turn the code off? And if so, for how many miles per single one way trip and how many trips need to be riven to contribute towards getting closer to turning the SES light off due to the P0117 code?
2) If SES light should have turned off already since replacing the thermostat and observing the Sentra operate normally as I have in the past, what do I need to check in order to resolve this issue?

Any help is appreciated, Thanks!

[Gambit X]

you could disconnect the battery and it may erase it, but your best bet is to go to autozone and use their code scanner to erase the code. it's free and only takes a minute or two. codes usually don't just go away on their own.