icepixie | Entries tagged with tooth saga

Got my permanent crown today. Since the tooth was still sore when I bit (despite no longer having a nerve inside it) and my gums were still swollen and had started bleeding again when I brush my teeth, my dentist hypothesized that I might be allergic to the material the temporary crown was made of, which was causing a lot of my pain.

Somehow I can't say this surprises me.

(Dear immune system: CHILL. OUT.)

He had to numb me to get the crown on, so I still have no idea if my bite is okay. He says it is, but he's said that before. *shifty eyes*

Since I'm on the topic of medical news, Jolivette (minipill) and I have had a violent and permanent breakup. I could live with a bit of spotting when it was making my period much less horrible than it had been previously, but I can't live with a week of spotting at the midpoint of the month that is heavier than my real period, and when both of them have the pain turned up to 11. Which I suppose is better than the eleventy billion it was before, but twice in a month? Nope. 4 out of 5 women on this pill don't have a period; obviously they send them all to the fifth woman, i.e., me, in some kind of cruel cosmic zero sum game.

Tonight I start Lo Loestrin, and I get to skip the placebo pills, so in theory I will not bleed while on this pill. Frankly, I'm pretty sure my body makes enough hormones to bleed through anything, possibly including complete hysterectomy, but we'll see. Maybe it will work.

I'm probably allergic to it.

Current Mood: annoyed
Crossposts: http://icepixie.livejournal.com/948053.html

My actual root canal this morning was actually much less exciting than the "getting numb" part. I warned the endodontist that it takes "kill an elephant" quantities of anesthetic to numb my mouth, and he responded by doubling his usual dosage. Which gave me a mild reaction from the epinephrine used in the solution to make it last longer, but at least that was over after a few minutes of trembling and feeling sick.

Still wasn't numb, though. He gave me more, waited for it to sink in, started drilling. ABORT ABORT ABORT. He gave me a worried look, said I was already almost at the maximum, and made noises about getting one of the other dentists in the practice to put me under for this procedure. Then he gave me one last shot in the roof of my mouth--he said this was all he could give me before dire side effects could occur, and if it didn't work I was definitely going to have to be put to sleep--which luckily did the trick. (The dental assistant claimed I would be numb for hours and hours after it was over. Yeah, it started wearing off on the drive home. I definitely suspect I have this mutated gene.)

I must ask my regular dentist if he shoots me up in a different place than normal or if after fifteen years of experience with me he just pegs my dosage at the maximum right off without fiddling around with normal amounts, so I can give better instructions to new people.

After that, it was really only about twenty minutes of drilling and poking and pouring bleach down the empty canals (seriously, it smelled like a swimming pool even through the dental dam), all of which I could vaguely tell was going on but at least didn't hurt. The process of how a root canal is done is actually rather fascinating (they fill the empty root canals with gutta-percha! How very Victorian!), but I must admit I wasn't keen on getting a blow by blow description while it was happening to me.

It definitely seems to have fixed a lot of my problems, anyway. I'm still on massive amounts of ibuprofen and the odd half a hydrocodone because my gums are swollen to twice their normal size again, and I still can't chew anything tougher than an overcooked noodle on that side, but at least my tooth no longer hurts when I so much as touch my tongue to it, or when my cheek rests against the rim of real tooth exposed above my temporary crown. And the pressure under the crown is gone too, which is a major relief. They reseated my temp more comfortably, as well, and my bite feels less off than it did before. I should, they say, be back to normal in a week and then I can get the permanent crown.

*

In other news, this weekend I went to Music City Crepes, which is the closest I've come to those awesome food truck crepes in Paris. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure anything here could quite compare to a warm gob of Nutella wrapped in pastry on a freezing spring Parisian night, though. Anyway, these guys could use more Nutella in their Nutella crepe, but the veggie crepe with mushrooms, black olives, pesto, and spinach was delicious. I will definitely be going back sometime.

I also saw a bottle of real maple syrup there for much less than grocery stores usually charge, so now it is mine and it is delicious.

Current Mood: drained
Crossposts: http://icepixie.livejournal.com/947340.html

Impending root canal on Monday. Well, in theory the endodontist can say I don't need one, but realistically, I'm getting one.

30, I liked you. This was going to be the year I fixed lingering medical problems, not acquired new ones. Why you gotta do me this way?

(At least I now have sweet, sweet narcotics for the pain...)

Current Mood: sore
Crossposts: http://icepixie.livejournal.com/946712.html

Why did no one tell me getting a crown hurts this much? I thought it would be like getting a filling! Instead, it falls somewhere between "getting braces tightened" and "getting wisdom teeth removed." Leaning, unfortunately, towards the latter. I miss chewing. Also not having my cheekbone and all the teeth on my left side feel like a boxer punched them.

The dental assistant said it should calm down by Friday (I got the prep/temporary cap done yesterday morning). I'm not sure I'll last that long. Also, the local anesthetic started wearing off before the end or the procedure yesterday, which the dentist made a frowny face at and said could indicate I actually will need a root canal. If so, I hope that need comes to light before they put the permanent crown on in two weeks, because the last thing I want is to pay for two crowns on the same tooth.

Current Mood: OH GOD MY FACE
Crossposts: http://icepixie.livejournal.com/946507.html

Well, as I suspected he would, after three attempts at sanding my old filling down and managing to get my bite aligned but not actually fixing the pain, my dentist determined that my problem tooth is actually microscopically cracked and will need a crown. Bah. At least it'll get fixed for good this way. (And if this doesn't fix the problem, I may well cry.)

I also scheduled my endo surgery for June. Fingers crossed it does the trick at least for a long time, if not until menopause.

*

The ice rink closed on Saturday afternoon, and will remain closed until sometime in July if all goes well, August if not. Tomorrow is the first Wednesday in months that I won't be getting up at some insane time to go practice. What will I do with myself?

(Aside from go down to the rink in Franklin...but getting up at 4:30 to do so is beyond even my level of enthusiasm.)

At least I won't have to clean frost off my car at six AM (and perhaps it will have melted by seven), because it's going to be 30 degrees on the night of April fifteenth, Nature, what are you doing??

*

I'm just going to assume these kids reacting to a Walkman tape player are playing up their ignorance for the camera. Come onnnn, surely they've watched movies or cartoons or something with cassette tapes, right? And seen them for sale in used music/book/etc. stores? Their parents still have some hanging around? I know they must've been around a VCR at some point, that's not too old, and the technology is basically the same.

...Right?