My Recent Adventure

I've been quite busy these past few weeks. I've had a lot of things to do, and a good amount of energy in which to do them, thankfully. A little while ago I broke my tooth whilst sampling the new Fiesta Starbursts. They were yummy. While we were trying them I bit down on one and heard this very faint click. I pulled out the Starburst to find a perfectly preserved portion of my tooth embedded right in the Starburst. The good thing is that I had a root canal done on the tooth over 18 years ago, so there wasn't any pain. The bad news was that I was going to have to go to the dentist and get it repaired. I don't do so well with dentists.

So, I went and had a dentist look at it and he said that he could save the tooth, but that it definitely needed to have a crown put on it. I went in on Thursday of last week to have my tooth prepped for the crown. They told me it would be about an hour and a half in the chair. I was there for two and a half hours. I don't know if it was because they were busy or because my tooth was pretty bad. They pulled out the old filling, cleaned out the decay that was in there, refilled it with a new filling, and then fit me for a temporary crown. I had a few shots of the numbing liquid so I wouldn't feel anything, but then about half way through the procedure I needed to get another shot since I could start to feel things a little. I told him I didn't need it, but he said that he had to do it. Bummer. I think the shots are the worst part.

After I left the office I was shaking all over, like I was really cold deep down and just couldn't get warm. That lasted for a couple of days and I really think it was just my body trying to defend itself from the terror that was the dentists office. The dentist and the assistants were extremely nice and I felt very comfortable around them. I just don't like people poking around in my mouth with sharp objects and painful procedures that I know are going to hurt later. And on top of that I've noticed lately that it takes me almost twice as long to recover from things that would normally take less. That's actually something new I've noticed this year.

Anyway, my mouth hurt pretty bad once I got home and it became especially painful for me to talk or swallow or move my mouth at all, so I ended up taking Tylenol a couple of times that evening and calling it a day. The next day I took some when I woke up, but the pain seemed significantly better, so I thought things were healing nicely. However, a couple of days after my appointment my mouth hurt really bad and I tried to pinpoint exactly where it was coming from. Was it the tooth? Was it my cheek? Was it the gums or my tongue? Where? I figured out that I had a blister under my tongue where the suction tube was resting for lengthy periods of time while they worked on my tooth. I figured that would just take time to go away, but the outside edge of my tongue was extremely sensitive and the gums along my tooth line next to my cheek were really swollen. I thought maybe it was a delayed reaction to the work on my tooth so I took some more Tylenol and just tried to rest my mouth to see if that made it better.

Let's just skip forward to today where I am putting Oral Gel on my gums and cheek and tongue every four hours and trying not to move my mouth at all. It is so painful, and so swollen, and now the gums, tongue, and cheek all have little white spots on them around that area, and my right ear hurts as well. I don't know if the white spots are little blisters or infection or something, but I called my dentist's office today to ask him about it. I normally would try and give it some more time, but the swelling has spread to the whole lower half of my jaw and is starting to affect my bottom front teeth. Not only that, but it is still incredibly painful. I haven't eaten on that side of my mouth since I first broke my tooth, I brush my teeth every day and rinse with the Crest Pro Health rinse. I drink water to keep my mouth hydrated, and I am really trying to create a healing environment in my mouth. The blister under my tongue is getting better, but this other stuff just keeps getting worse. The secretary at the dentists office said it was something she wanted me to come in and have the dentist look at, but he wasn't in the office today so I have an appointment tomorrow at noon. I hope it's nothing serious, though I don't think I would be surprised if it turned out to be. That's just the way things are going for me, so I'm not going to freak myself out or worry about it until I know. I really don't think it's a root canal since I already had that done on my tooth, and it doesn't hurt like pain from a nerve. It's this swelling and irritation and white spots and ear pain that have me concerned. We'll see tomorrow. I hate the thought of going back in, but something must be done to relieve this swelling and irritation.