samurai photographer versus Mesioangular Impaction
It all started about two weeks ago, maybe three. One of my molars was hurting me, and the gums were swelling up. "It's nothing," I thought. "Just a seed or something, it'll go away in a few days." I thought this because that is what usually happens. A few extra brushes, a few "excavations" with a clean fingernail or toothpick, and the offending particle breaks free of the fleshy prison and enables me to get back to normal life.
Not this time.
It bothered me when I was eating Korean food with Tim, when I took care to not get rice stuck back there. A few nights later, drinking sake (to disinfect it, natch) and eating wasabi squid didn't do anything except burn a little.
So I went to the dentist, and he looked at it and recommended an oral surgeon. Now, I'm not a complete wuss, but the idea of oral surgery pretty much freaked me out. Mostly because of all the horror stories you hear about jawbones getting sawed, infections, and assorted painful stuff. I've had enough teeth pulled to know it's not the needles or the actual act of pulling that sucks, it's the recovery, and this was COMPLETELY out of my ken.
So I spent the days between my dentist appointment and my surgical appointment annoying the shit out of my mother, and a few chosen friends (KW/CM/AS thank you thank you thank you) all of whom pretty much commiserated ("That sucks") but said it was No Big Deal.
The day of surgery, I went to the office with high hopes. Maybe they don't have to go. If they do have to go, maybe they aren't impacted so much that it will take major action to remove them. When I got to look at my orbital x-ray - and by the way, this machine was possibly the coolest piece of medical machinery I have ever had used on me - I saw the awful truth: the teeth they wanted to remove had partial soft tissue impactions (not a big deal) but one of the other ones on the opposite side of my mouth was sort of buried deep in the jawbone, near the nerve, and on its side. I shuddered, and silently hoped that they weren't going to try to extract that one too.
As the doctor prepped me, one by one the other hygenists and the other dentist came in to kind of ooh and aah over my freakish molar. "You couldn't pay me enough to take that tooth," said one, in a tone that was only half joking. I was then informed that if I were a teenager they would remove it without question, but since I was a little, um, long in the tooth, they were going to leave it alone unless/until it causes a problem.
The whole procedure took about an hour, and I was, as usual, a calm and collected patient (sure, I whiteknuckled it through the whole procedure, but at least this time I didn't rip the padding off the chair...) I didn't get to keep the offending teeth because of Biohazard disposal laws or somesuch, but I did get to see the fuckers, and man they were big.
I went home to recover, tried to tough it out on Aleve but decided sleep was a better idea, so I took one of the painkillers they prescribed me and had a decent night's sleep.
The next morning I had an allergic reaction to the antibiotics, but that is a post for another day...
Not this time.
It bothered me when I was eating Korean food with Tim, when I took care to not get rice stuck back there. A few nights later, drinking sake (to disinfect it, natch) and eating wasabi squid didn't do anything except burn a little.
So I went to the dentist, and he looked at it and recommended an oral surgeon. Now, I'm not a complete wuss, but the idea of oral surgery pretty much freaked me out. Mostly because of all the horror stories you hear about jawbones getting sawed, infections, and assorted painful stuff. I've had enough teeth pulled to know it's not the needles or the actual act of pulling that sucks, it's the recovery, and this was COMPLETELY out of my ken.
So I spent the days between my dentist appointment and my surgical appointment annoying the shit out of my mother, and a few chosen friends (KW/CM/AS thank you thank you thank you) all of whom pretty much commiserated ("That sucks") but said it was No Big Deal.
The day of surgery, I went to the office with high hopes. Maybe they don't have to go. If they do have to go, maybe they aren't impacted so much that it will take major action to remove them. When I got to look at my orbital x-ray - and by the way, this machine was possibly the coolest piece of medical machinery I have ever had used on me - I saw the awful truth: the teeth they wanted to remove had partial soft tissue impactions (not a big deal) but one of the other ones on the opposite side of my mouth was sort of buried deep in the jawbone, near the nerve, and on its side. I shuddered, and silently hoped that they weren't going to try to extract that one too.
As the doctor prepped me, one by one the other hygenists and the other dentist came in to kind of ooh and aah over my freakish molar. "You couldn't pay me enough to take that tooth," said one, in a tone that was only half joking. I was then informed that if I were a teenager they would remove it without question, but since I was a little, um, long in the tooth, they were going to leave it alone unless/until it causes a problem.
The whole procedure took about an hour, and I was, as usual, a calm and collected patient (sure, I whiteknuckled it through the whole procedure, but at least this time I didn't rip the padding off the chair...) I didn't get to keep the offending teeth because of Biohazard disposal laws or somesuch, but I did get to see the fuckers, and man they were big.
I went home to recover, tried to tough it out on Aleve but decided sleep was a better idea, so I took one of the painkillers they prescribed me and had a decent night's sleep.
The next morning I had an allergic reaction to the antibiotics, but that is a post for another day...
posted by Jodi S. at 8:27:00 PM
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