Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Achy Breaky, Tooth!

(Caption say's "worst case of ninjavitis I've ever seen.")

It certainly feels like Ninjas are engaged in the ultimate battle in my mouth.

Last week, after grumbling to the Mrs. for the past 2-3 days, I went to my dentist complaining about a pain in one of my molars. Thought maybe there was something stuck in between the back 2 molars that floss and toothpicking could not clear.

After an x-ray, it was discovered that part of a filling had broken loose, and as my dentist put it the "perfect storm" occurred - some nice bacteria were lurking patiently (thus the ninja-vitis reference) and they attacked when the shields were down.
The bad news was that part of a filling sheared away and took some of the tooth sidewall with it. My dentist tells me, "good news, we can salvage the tooth. Bad news, the tooth will have to be crowned."
So I have to go see an Endodontist, but the one he recommended isn't on my insurance plan - Grrr! (lousy HMO, mumble mumble, curse-under-my-breath...) So we call the HMO and finally find one whom he can recommend... But, I couldn't get into to have the root canal done until the following week. Grrr! again.

My dentist gives me a prescription for lortab to tide me until then... It works nicely at night until the effects wear off and I'm up at 3 am writhing in pain...

Anyone know if this is still available? Think it might work, too. May really make me loopy but if it deadens the pain, I'm about ready for anything.
Part 2 of the story. I finally get to see the Endodontis - hurray! 'pain, pain, go away...', I'm thinking as the Endodontist administers shots in the upper palate - man I have yet to experience anything more painful. Novocain applied and doing its thing, and now the drilling... and more drilling... and more drilling...
He tells me everything is going smoothly over the loud drilling into my skull (I did wonder why the drill bit hadn't yet made it to my brain...)

Uh-Oh, Houston, we have a problem... I hear him talking over the drilling about the 'decayed nature' of the tooth to his assistant, to which later he tells me "we didn't get everything done today. We'll need to schedule another visit."

"Ok", I say with a sigh, pondering at how much more $$$ out of pocket...
The receptionist tells me, "our next available is in 10 days. Is this ok?" Thinking that the pain had been taken care of, I agree to this date. I must have been high from the novocain, because as soon as it wore off, I was greeted by my old friend, Mr. Tooth Pain.

Luckily, a cancellation has me back in tomorrow - Fingers crossed - hoping the good doctor will fix me all better.

1 comment:

The Laundry Queen said...

Good luck with that. Love all the accompanying cartoons, etc. They make the story come alive.