Dental sigh
For the record, crown fittings are not pleasant. At all. I do not like having wire jammed into my gums and then several trays of goo crammed into my mouth. This was a 3 hour appointment! And I have 2 more. <blargh>
On the upside, I had my last scheduled filling today. <cheer!> And, most of my cold sensitivity seems to have faded mostly away! <double cheer!> I do still have one spot that still bugs me, though. After some cold tests (really cold stuff sprayed on a cotton ball and then stuck on my tooth – I had normal results – and blasts of air onto the tops and sides of my teeth – the side seems to bug me most), the dentist seems fairly sure I won’t need a root canal on that tooth and is optimistic that I just need some bite readjustment because my teeth may be hitting weird and causing some minor trauma that makes the tooth sensitive. I was very hesitant the last time this came up to believe that excuse, but at that time, I was having throbbing pain throughout most of the day and was popping Advil like candy, which is definitely not the case now, so I’m pretty open to the possibility this time. She said that typically air bothering the side of my tooth is indicative of gum recession, but she says she doesn’t see any recession, so she made some small adjustments to my bite and we’re going to see what happens. I may have to go back for more small adjustments, but hopefully that will be all it takes to fix it rather than real dental work (like fillings or root canals). I’m hopeful, but still a bit nervous. I really just want to be done with all the dental work. Physically and mentally (worrying about problems after fillings and worrying about costs), it’s been pretty exhausting.
So, the current plan, assuming that sensitivity fades away, is to go back in about 3 weeks for my permanent crown, schedule my last 2 crowns (might be as few as 2 appointments if I do them together or as much as 4 if not), and that should be it for the year. I’ve found out that my dental plan has a max coverage, so it’s not looking like I’ll be able to get the wisdom teeth taken out this year without going over it, so that will be scheduled for early 2010. I hate to think that it won’t be “over” till then, but I guess it’s really only a few more procedures, fairly spread out, so at least I shouldn’t feel like I live at the dentist this year.
When will it end?
So today marks the halfway point of getting my cavities filled. My bottom teeth are all set (assuming all goes well with today’s teeth – I really really don’t want a repeat of last time and I really really don’t want to have to pay for another root canal, but the dentist said today that I shouldn’t worry about that this time, that these were all shallow and on the sides of teeth) and I’ll be moving on to the top next month. Though even when I’m done will all the drilling, I still have the expensive stuff left – 3 crowns and having my wisdom teeth pulled. *sigh* All this dental work really wears me out and stresses me out. I just want it to be done.
Nothing special to report today, really – it seemed to go pretty well. I’m a little sore, but that’s to be expected. I did have the worst novocaine injection ever though. Honestly, it felt like the dentist was dragging the needle over the bone under the gums near my teeth. It hurt. The dental assistant was nice though – she held my hand till it was over. That’s gonna be sore, though, when the novocaine wears off.
Anyway, just wanted to check in with my dental report. I know it’s not terribly exciting, but oh well.
Doing better, finally
I hope I’m not jinxing it by saying that, but I think my tooth may be doing better. As I mentioned before, I was supposed to call my dentist back this week with an update on my pain. It was still there, so we finally decided to move forward and do the root canal. Is it sad/disturbing that I was actually looking forward to this? Not that I like pain, of course. Actually quite the opposite – I so wanted to be rid of the pain that I definitely wanted to do whatever I needed to do, even if it involved possible pain and novocaine-induced heart racing that freaks me out. Really, if she had suggested more filing, I would have offered to do the root canal myself.
But anyway, I found out Tuesday that we’d be doing the root canal, my appointment was yesterday (very thankful my dentist got me in so quickly with the specialist), and today I seem to be doing better. A little soreness at the injection sites (no freak-outs or laughter in the dentist chair this time, though!), but I haven’t experienced the ache (yet – gah, I hope never do – *knocks on head*).
And! This weekend, Chris and I are having a couple’s massage! Very looking forward to that! 
Filing my teeth into points
Another trip to the dentist today. She’s still mostly convinced my problem is an uneven bite, though I did seem to get through to her a bit about my concern that it might be something more, seeing as how the pain I’m having is reminiscent of the pain I had before my first root canal 4 years ago. But I agree that I want to rule out a simple problem like the bite before jumping into another root canal and the bite was definitely uneven – I could feel it and she showed me where my teeth were hitting too much using that blue bitey paper stuff – so she did some more filing.
After hearing about the filing from last week, Chris (who’s never had a cavity, lucky him, so didn’t know about the possible problems after getting a filling. Ok, maybe it’s not luck. Maybe it’s the 10 minutes he spends methodically brushing his teeth – you could compare it to something Monk would do.) joked that the dentist was trying to file my teeth into points. Unfortunately, I thought of this conversation and pictured my pointy teeth in my head mid-file and started laughing uncontrollably. Luckily there was no harm done to my teeth, but I think the dentist thinks I’m crazy. She thought she’d hit a tickley spot and I tried to explain why I was laughing, but could barely get it out I was laughing so much. I don’t know why I found it so funny. Actually one of my teeth is rather pointy now, but the bite is much more comfortable and even feeling and I’m sure the tiny spot will file down naturally.
So, now I wait another week to see if the pain subsides. If there’s no change or it gets worse, I call again. I don’t know what’s next. Unfortunately, I keep remembering that I’ve got another filling appointment in 3 weeks, so I’m worried this will just repeat every time until I’m done with the fillings. But I guess the root canal I had a couple months ago never gave me any problems, so maybe it’ll all be fine.
In other news, the release date of the new WoW expansion, Wrath of the Lich King was finally announced – November 13th! And I managed to preorder 2 copies of the Collector’s Edition! Yay! November’s going to be a busy month for us with that release (we’ll be attending the midnight release at our local GameStop, followed by playing for hours on end – yup, we’re dorks. Big ones.), the TSO concert, visiting my family for Thanksgiving, and a certain movie which I will talk about tomorrow (it requires a post all it’s own, teehee). Apparently Metallica, Chris’s favorite band, is playing in Houston, where Chris’s family lives, in November as well, but I don’t think we can afford to fly down to see it, so unfortunately we’ll have to give that a miss. But anyway, at least there’s some fun stuff on the horizon!
Can I Move In?
With the dentist, that is. I was back there today, again. My teeth were feeling fine after my last adventure at the dentist until about Sunday night when they started to ache. It’s hard to pinpoint a tooth, but I know it’s the general area of where I had the fillings put in. It’s been a while since I had just a regular filling, so I wasn’t sure if it was normal post-drilling irritation or what.
I went in and the dentist did an X-ray, which showed nothing unusual, so she filed the fillings down some in hopes that it’s just an issue with the bite. It might have been, but any unevenness before was barely noticeable – can that be enough to cause a toothache? I don’t know. Maybe? It feels different now, and I can’t tell if it’s for the better or not. The pressure seems like it’s on different teeth now, I think. I guess we’ll see. She said that if it was just the bite, the pain would subside over the next few days (lovely, a few days). If it gets worse, we’re back in possible root canal territory. DO NOT WANT! *sigh* I guess for now, I’ll go back to popping Advil like candy (not really. I try to be very sparing with the Advil. It’s got potassium in it and that makes me nervous that I’d have a heart attack or something if I took too many.)
Tell me something happy so I can stop thinking about my teeth and how I want to just rip them all out.
Whadayouh mea youh ca’ uddethan meh?
*Sigh* Well, dentist appointment 3 out of 6 is done (yes, my teeth are a mess). Two more fillings, another numb mouth. I feel like Sylvester Stallone. My entire bottom jaw is numb, as is half of my tongue. Everything I say comes out as a drunken slur. And yet, I can already feel the pain of the novocaine injection site. Tonight’s gonna be fun.
I also feel like I spent the last hour and a half at a water park. By the time they were done, my face was covered in water spray and whatever else came out of my mouth while they were drilling and spraying and sucking and filling. Luckily they gave me goggles in the beginning, so at least it wasn’t in my eyes.
My next appointment is Oct. 7th. *Whine* I don’t wanna go!
