Man, everything in my life these days seems to be either directly related to or orbiting the subjects of dentists and home ownership.
Mack's teeth are paid for in two more payments of $250 THANK GOD! Mase's teeth are getting preventative care (brushing and flossing several times a day and a professional cleaning every two months) to stave off the same prob Mack had and I am hopeful.
Mick has great teeth and his single cavity was fast and easily treated with no trauma at all. Lucky punk.
Today was my big appointment.
Mike needs to get two cavities filled, which his insurances covers, so in 1-2 more appointments, he'll be gravvy.
We got all of our ducks in a row, T's signed, I's dotted, affairs in order, and many other time honored cliches of a similar bent. Basically, alllll good. We passed all our inspections, the full price plus all the little add-ons and such is still within our loan limit and our monthly budget, we turned in notice with our landlord, we have arranged help for the house moving AND kid watching (thank you MOM!) Mike heard from our mortgage broker that we had been approved 1 day before the acceptable credit score was raised ... to a score above Mike's median by 10. BUT we got it just in time. Phew!
Back to my teeth.... I know, you SO want to hear this. I had gone to the dentist for a cleaning and assessment. I would have said 'check up' but that implied that I had no idea anything could be wrong and it was simply to make sure all was still hunky dory in my mouth. I KNEW it wasn't. I had broken my #18 tooth. Lower left side, last molar. I broke it the Christmas before I got pregnant with my now-17 month old. Since I never saw a dentist, it understandably got worse. At my assessment, the dentist told me I needed a root canal on a tooth that didn't hurt at all (#16), no damage to be seen, and that the broken tooth needed pulled. Extracted. Like it was that simple. Bah. Oh, and 17 fillings, plus a possible second root canal (#3, upper right hand second in from the back) depending on how bad it looked once I was under anesthesia.
Right about then was when Mack had seen a pediatric dentist and we both turned out to need thousands of dollars in care. Mine could be fixed later, Mack's were more important. Still, it took months to get things in order and in the end, Mack got 4 upper center teeth pulled and every single tooth in his head got a crown. All of them. Tiny, shiny, silver crowns all around except for his eye teeth, which are large white things. He calls them his Super Teeth.
Once that was taken care of, I was supposed to go to the dentist. Being scared as I am, I put it off a couple of weeks. Two weeks too long. The root canal that didn't hurt got sore, like I had a popcorn skin stuck not in the gum, but UNDER the tooth. Then one day while flossing, it snapped off a chunk of tooth between it and the molar behind it. The next day I noticed swelling, tenderness... then dark purple color streaking from it... then white spots on top of that. Crap. Abscess. Well, at least it explained why I had been sick to my stomach after eating for so long. I used oil pulling to clear it up, which worked in about three days. I figured I would let it heal completely because all they would do is put me on antibiotics and wait 10 days anyhow.
Another mistake. I was eating one night and my second possible root canal broke. A chunk of tooth and a giant filling. I was pissed, but the next morning when my attempt to eat a banana put me spasms of pain, I realized I had a big problem.
Mike made my appointment that day, but they only had an appointment for two weeks later. I dealt, I ate mush and drank meal replacement shakes and avoided soda because it invariably cause throbbing pain everywhere.
And the appointment? Scary as hell and I hope I never have to do it again. The dentist, while congenial and talented was easily distracted and a little slow to warn me he was about to do something that "might pinch a little". If by pinching, you mean less like a Aunty grabbing my cheek and more like Aunty slapping me silly, then yes, it pinched a bit.
Let me go back and start at the beginning. Good place, right? I know, I am brilliant. At the appointment Mike made, they looked me over, painlessly poked around and gave me the verdict of two root canals and extraction. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. I was quoted a price that, combined with my pain (emotional and physical) had me crying like a big moron. It would max my dental coverage for a YEAR as well as cost me $609 out of pocket. Upon the tears falling, the hygienist recommended Care Credit. I could get a loan for $1000 over the phone and take care of my teeth plus some, then pay it back at $83 a month for the next 12 months. If I screwed up at all, the charges and fees applied would be outrageous, but if I stuck to the agreement I was saved. Of course did the only thing I could. I called Care Credit and put myself into debt. I had been making the call outside the office, got approval and went straight back in only to be told I couldn't have an appointment for another 8 days. Instead, they called me last night with a cancellation. I took it, scared out of my wits.
I went in this morning at 10:40 and left the kids with Mike to go to the park. The dentist and hygienist reviewed the plan with me again and I was surprised to find it included both root canals, but not the extraction, which pained me most. I added it on because saving a tooth is $1100 but pulling one was only $125.
They numbed me with a weird new tool - a normal looking syringe with a wicked long thin needle, but instead of a plunger, it was attached by hose to a machine that pumped the right amount of anesthesia. It talked and whirred while it worked and freaked me out at first. Two deep shots to the lower left where the extraction and abscessed tooth were. This left my face numb up to the corner of my eye. The same thing on the upper right. It was painful, but I was way too scared in response to something so simple. I was getting so tense that my muscles were twitching and shaking like crazy. I was asked many times if I was ok.
Why would they ask that? Did I look ok?
I had been through an emergency root canal once 6 years ago and I remember the pain being a single zing of an electric shock through the center of my tooth. That happened with the first root canal today. It would have been bearable, but the fine, tiny, mosquito-like drill was replaced with a larger, eyeball shaking, pavement cutter inspired thing. Right about the time the dentist let it wind down while touching tooth then whirred the RPMs back up, I felt the tell-tale tingling waterfall from my crown to my toes. I was shaking so bad no one noticed the sudden and unexplainable rush of large goosebumps all over my body so I had to wave my hand frantically. NO NO NO I cannot have a seizure with a drill in my mouth!!!
The two looked at me in concern and pulled the instruments away just in time for me to do my impression of a floppy fish dying, the hygienist asking urgently if I had a foul taste. How would I know? I've never tasted me thanks, and promptly pass out.
I woke to see the dentist comforting the 25 year old hygienist and telling her he thought it was a petit mal and it should be fine now. He went on as if I hadn't moments ago caused him to hold a drill behind his head. Maybe I'm being presumptuous, but I would believe he hasn't had much call to do that before.
She, on the other hand... she was pissed. I got that "you scared me bad, jerk!" look for a few minutes while they finished my tooth. I also got several comments about seizures not being in my medical history.
I was silly enough to believe they wanted to know about seizures because of the meds I would be taking. Since I was un-diagnosed with something between a petit mal and epilepsy, they never gave me meds. Thus I didn't mention it, besides, the seizures are uncommon enough I never thought I would have one. Thankfully, I was spaced and zombie-like after, relaxing to the point of Limpnoodlyness and my lack of muscle tone and response prompted them to ask again, repeatedly if I was ok.
Moving on to root canal number two! Yippee! This felt numb til they drilled it. I then screamed and bucked and kicked. He asked calmly 'did you feel something?'
As if to make sure I wasn't being dramatic, he poked the exposed and mangled but live nerve with a sharp metal thing. Same response. The cure? Jab it again with anesthesia. Twice he did this and the third time still it hurt I closed my eyes and thought of my happy place and pretended to feel no pain so it would be over. The hygienist said over and over "that's a LIVE tooth" After all, once the nerve was out, shouldn't the pain stop? It did til he "tested the depth of the dentine" It was an acceptable level of 19, whatever that means, and it hurt like fire. As with the first tooth, he screwed in a pin that on x-rays looked wood screw eating accident and covered it up with an amalgam that was cured with a black light looking device.
Next came the fastest and least painful procedure, the extraction.
WRONG.
He had numbed the nerve in my jaw a few extra times for the 2nd root canal and assumed it would hold back the pain from the extraction. Nope. It was as if there was no anesthesia. He had wrenched on it a few times when he realized I was softly squealing in pain.
Another local directly into my inflamed and abused tooth involved first drilling the center away. Oh, such pain. It still didn't work, so another local as well as another long acting anesthetic. Then after one more failed attempt to deaden the fire, he gave me another long acting dose and left for a while. While he was gone, I noticed no difference and steeled myself for the inevitable. Sure enough, with a sympathetic look and a firm hand on my shoulder, he literally muscled that sucker out through my pain. Every touch, every tweak felt like an electric shock in the center of my tooth. Like a weed-burner fence, the pain was stronger each shock til with an anticlimactic ending, the tooth came free. Near complete cessation of pain, no more shock, no noise or sensation to indicate it was free of my jaw. After this, the woman had the ... let's use the word 'gall' because she obviously didn't have the anatomy that came to mind as a descriptive and let's face it, my Mom reads this once in a while) to turn to me and say that sometimes pressure was interpreted as pain... to which I yelled " Holy Crap! I couldn't feel my FACE but I felt that tooth, like a shock in the core every time it was touched"
Oh. she says, that does sound like nerve pain.
You THINK!?!
By this time I had stopped twice to pee, the dentist had seen three other patients and it was 2pm. I had been through three births and never wanted pain killers, but when the Dr mentioned a RX, I said Bring it on! only to find that once I got to the pharmacy, it was for steroids. Not pain relief. Cus I needs to be bulkier, hairier and have a smidge more mean attitude. What about my pian?!?!
Take 600 mg ibuprofen he says.
It's now 3:26 am and I am still numb. I am unable to feel my left eye, left ear and the scalp for about two inches around said ear. I cannot feel my lower lip or any of the teeth in my lower left jaw. If I cannot feel, I cannot eat. It's now been 24 hours and I have had the total of 1 cup milk and half a cup water. I want to wake up with feeling but I also dread the ache. At least most of the grossly swollen cheek is down. Now I am worrying about dry socket ratios and the fact that women get twice as many occurrences. Once I had the used of my right side and half of my tongue, I talked to my mom and she was sure I wasn't ok, even before I told her about my day. She is a font of deep sympathy and unquestionable sincerity... she called me Nancy (sewing with Nancy)
Mike bought me a donut and a warm, not hot, coffee to make me feel better. The coffee was do-able if I was paying close attention, but the solid food was not. Now that donut sits taunting me. Damn pastries. it feels a little like the grave yard hallucination scene from the movie Young Sherlock. I'm Watson. The donut is the cream filled cruller. And the zombies... well, does a van of sleeping kids count?
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