Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Groan!! I am not usually a wimp but....

I am wimping out to day.
A week ago, I went to my dentist to have him take a look at a crowned tooth, I thought had decay right at the gum line. Sure enough, there was decay so the crown had to be removed. This crown had been put on by another dentist many years ago so Dr Bob did not know what he was up against. It was not an easy job to remove the crown. After much work with what felt like a hammer and chisel, the crown finally broke free. Dr Bob showed me why the crown was so firmly fixed in place, it had a post down the center and a whole lot of glue. I was sent home with instructions on how to take care of the uncrowned tooth, actually just a little of the root was left sticking out from the gum line, and given an appointment to be back in a weeks time (yesterday) to see what we had.
Dr Bob took a look and said the decay had eaten away a good portion of one side, there was not enough left to be able to work with to reinstall the crown, so the rest of what was left of the tooth had to be removed.
Having a tooth pulled was not something I was looking forward to, but knew it had to be done. After deadening the area Dr Bob got to work. He worked and worked on getting that root out, I thought he was going to have to put his knee on my cheek to get leverage to pull that stubborn tooth. At one point he asked if it I was OK I signaled that I was not, what can you do but signal when you have a mouth full of Doctors fingers and dentistry tools, Dr Bob injected more of the good stuff to deaden the area some more and went back to work.
The root finally came loose and Dr Bob showed me why it was such a hard one to remove. Instead of the usual pointed root, it had a rounded end, what he called a ball. Well that was all over, so I thought, but evidently there was not as much blood flowing to form a clot as Dr Bob would like ( you need a blood clot to help in the healing process, other wise you could end up with a dry socket, which means more problems) Dr Bob had to traumatise the area around the empty socket to induce more blood to flow, there still wasn't a whole lot, so he placed a wad of gauze in the gap and sent me home. We were hoping the wad of gauze would hold any clot forming blood in place.
As the effects of the shots wore off I started taking an over the counter pain killer and went to rest on my bed. I was feeling quite traumatized by now and my mouth was hurting. I managed to get some sleep, but this morning my injury site is very, very sore so I will have to keep on pain killers for a while yet.
Dr Bob and I discussed putting in an implant but I looked in the mirror this morning and the gap is far enough back to where you can't even see it when I smile, so I am opting for letting it all heal up and not going through any more traumatic surgery just to have a tooth there.
Now all I have to do today is get through a two hour shift on my job, then I can come home and relax. Dang! I don't ever remember ever having been laid so low after any previous dentistry.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Definately not a pleasant experience, I sure can vouch for that..!!
I had similar treatment done a few years ago, but luckily my dentist could replace the crown.
Sometimes I still get that niggling feeling below the crown, but 'suppose I'll have to cope with that - coz Keewee, I ain't no sissy, but I ain't gonna sit through the drama again (grin)
Take it easy and rest all you can, it will all work out in the end.

Which reminds me, I must pay another visit to the dear tooth doctor...!
Take good care of yourself dear girl and keep well.
GINCO