The Tooth The Saga Continues
Posted By Kathleen David on April 29, 2008
If you have just joined us, you may not know the current saga of what is going on in my mouth. Back on March 17th I woke up to some of the worst pain I have ever felt in my face since I broke my nose by running into a lighting pipe. My front tooth was throbbing and I was in a haze of pain. I went to my dentist who managed to get the pain to subside a bit and gave me a run of antibiotics and painkillers to get rid of the infection and keep me from tearing my face off. He informed me that I had fractured a tooth which I can trace to an accidental contact with the top of my daughter’s rather hard head.
I had gone back once but we couldn’t continue the root canal because I still had some pain and an itchy feeling in the tooth. Fast forward two weeks to give it time to heal and I had to cancel because I was one long bruise from the car accident. So yesterday I went and found out that I have more problems than just the tooth. Apparently there is an infection in the jaw that needs to be taken care of. So I now need to make an appointment with an oral surgeon to get that taken care of. He has to open the gum and scrap the infection out (or that is the layman’s version of what he is doing).
Now to add to the fun, I have to set up this appointment carefully since I have to get the root canal finished in the morning and then have the oral surgery that afternoon to fix the problem. Then my dentist can finish shoring up the tooth in question. Now understand I have a really good dentist. I have no problems with him or his work. I just am not looking forward to this procedure at all.
I am grateful that it is not worse than it is. Honestly, it could be a lot worse.
I had oral surgery several months ago. I never had to take any of the pain pills I was prescribed.
The trauma inside my pea-brain was move severe than the actual trauma. I am such a wimp before a procedure, and a very brave man after.
I seem to be giving this advice a lot lately…
Have some boost or ensure or similar on hand for post surgery. It’s easily drank, and somewhat filling.
And, unless you like extreme pain (and it does not seem that you do), NO STRAWS for at least a few days after.
Ack! I hope things work out well for you. I was going to say more but just the thought of procedures like that give me the heeby jeebies. Good luck.
I’ve had several root canals in the last year or so and none of them were nearly as bad as I had built them up in my mind from other people’s experiences… don’t know about the rest of your treatment, though… I’ll be thinking good, quick-healing thoughts for you!
Had this same procedure done earlier in the year, when one of my ceramic crowns developed a microfracture that allowed an infection to develop in the roots of the tooth. They drilled down through the ceramic crown, cleaned out the infection (plus oral antibiotic, typical root canal treatment), then resealed the crown – all in all, 3-4 sessions. Lots of aches and pain – my fault, I thought that the pain I was getting was just sinus. Blasted referred pain – was no where near the tooth involved. All better now though.
Your daughter’s hard head? Good to know she gets at least one trait from her dad. 🙂
In any case, while I’ve never had a root canal (thank heavens), I’ve had my share of crowns done and wisdom teeth removed, and some of them were pretty ugly.
The only advice I’d give is that if you’re on big pain meds (especially anything w/ codeine), get off them as soon as you don’t need them any more. They can be very, very habit-forming.
Hope it all goes well!
TWL