(no subject)
Dec. 20th, 2007 01:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogMy appointment with my dentist was at 7:30 today. I got there a little early and was in the chair right on time. In spite of that, they weren't done sticking things into my mouth until quarter after twelve, so I'm a little tired.
There were some difficulties with the extraction of the first wisdom tooth earlier this year. (Or was it late last year? Heck; I can't remember now.) This one, though, was even more problematic; it had an impressively hooked root. The doctor used one hand to hold my jaw in place, thumb on my tongue and fingers around the bottom of my chin, while he wiggled and tugged away with the pliers. That, though, was after he'd sectioned the tooth and taken out a couple of pieces already. You know, hearing bits of a tooth snapped off by pliers inside your head is a sound that I can't quite describe except as 'kind of disturbing'.
After cutting and removing a couple pieces, he was down to the roots, which he again had to section as they weren't coming out together. The hooked bit he actually got out, with some effort (I have it in a plastic baggy if you want to see it), but, oddly enough, the remaining straight root wouldn't come out.
By that time, the anesthetic was wearing off, so I got another injection into my gums (the third or fourth one up to that point; I can't remember exactly), and the doctor got a Hedstrom File, which he described to me as a sort of drywall-screw-like object (and which biology online describes as 'A coarse root canal file similar to a rasp') that he was going to drive into the hollow center of the remaining root so he could use it as a handle to pull it out.
In the end, it didn't end up working; that root is really jammed in there. Rather than start removing jawbone, he decided to let it be. Mostly likely, I'm told, the socket will just heal over it and it will be fine. If not, it may make its way to the surface some months hence. In that case, he can remove it with pliers as it shows itself.
Oh, before all of that, he fitted me with a temporary crown for another tooth. That went pretty quickly, in comparison. It involved basically drilling away about a millimeter and a half off the top after taking a mold of the tooth. Then, they create a new acrylic top for the tooth that stays for a couple weeks until the offsite lab sends back the permanent one, made using the mold, which they will attach then. Supposedly that will be pretty quick.
So I'm at home with Motrin 800 and some Clindamycin to prevent infection (and while I'm somewhat concerned by the idea of taking an antibiotic as a preventative rather than as a treatment, I have to admit, I'm taking it). I bought Gatorade and Sprite, at the doctor's recommendation to get some suger in my system. I'm trying to eat some leftover nacho cheese and meat to get food into my stomach to go with the Motrin, but it's kind of difficult when the whole left side of your face is still numb enough that you might be chewing holes in your cheek without noticing (he gave me some seven-hour stuff at the end of the visit), it hurts to chew on your right side because of the new crown, and you're still oozing blood into the gauze pad that you're holding between the spot where you used to have a tooth and the corresponding spot above it.
All that said, the doctor, who my brother's girlfriend, Lara, recommended to me, is absolutely fantastic and I can't praise him enough. If you ever need a dentist in Kenosha, check out Dr. Dan Johnson. The first time I visited him, I honestly wondered if he specialized in children, he had such a calming manner. As he worked on me, he and his assistants demonstrated a seemingly inexhaustible supply of patience, which I happily complimented them on a couple times. If I'd been working on removing something from a car for that long a stretch, there's no way in hell I'd still be that composed.
I'm hoping that I'm still up to going to Chicago tomorrow. I really don't feel like leaving the house right now, but I suppose time will tell. I'm going to go try to eat something again.
There were some difficulties with the extraction of the first wisdom tooth earlier this year. (Or was it late last year? Heck; I can't remember now.) This one, though, was even more problematic; it had an impressively hooked root. The doctor used one hand to hold my jaw in place, thumb on my tongue and fingers around the bottom of my chin, while he wiggled and tugged away with the pliers. That, though, was after he'd sectioned the tooth and taken out a couple of pieces already. You know, hearing bits of a tooth snapped off by pliers inside your head is a sound that I can't quite describe except as 'kind of disturbing'.
After cutting and removing a couple pieces, he was down to the roots, which he again had to section as they weren't coming out together. The hooked bit he actually got out, with some effort (I have it in a plastic baggy if you want to see it), but, oddly enough, the remaining straight root wouldn't come out.
By that time, the anesthetic was wearing off, so I got another injection into my gums (the third or fourth one up to that point; I can't remember exactly), and the doctor got a Hedstrom File, which he described to me as a sort of drywall-screw-like object (and which biology online describes as 'A coarse root canal file similar to a rasp') that he was going to drive into the hollow center of the remaining root so he could use it as a handle to pull it out.
In the end, it didn't end up working; that root is really jammed in there. Rather than start removing jawbone, he decided to let it be. Mostly likely, I'm told, the socket will just heal over it and it will be fine. If not, it may make its way to the surface some months hence. In that case, he can remove it with pliers as it shows itself.
Oh, before all of that, he fitted me with a temporary crown for another tooth. That went pretty quickly, in comparison. It involved basically drilling away about a millimeter and a half off the top after taking a mold of the tooth. Then, they create a new acrylic top for the tooth that stays for a couple weeks until the offsite lab sends back the permanent one, made using the mold, which they will attach then. Supposedly that will be pretty quick.
So I'm at home with Motrin 800 and some Clindamycin to prevent infection (and while I'm somewhat concerned by the idea of taking an antibiotic as a preventative rather than as a treatment, I have to admit, I'm taking it). I bought Gatorade and Sprite, at the doctor's recommendation to get some suger in my system. I'm trying to eat some leftover nacho cheese and meat to get food into my stomach to go with the Motrin, but it's kind of difficult when the whole left side of your face is still numb enough that you might be chewing holes in your cheek without noticing (he gave me some seven-hour stuff at the end of the visit), it hurts to chew on your right side because of the new crown, and you're still oozing blood into the gauze pad that you're holding between the spot where you used to have a tooth and the corresponding spot above it.
All that said, the doctor, who my brother's girlfriend, Lara, recommended to me, is absolutely fantastic and I can't praise him enough. If you ever need a dentist in Kenosha, check out Dr. Dan Johnson. The first time I visited him, I honestly wondered if he specialized in children, he had such a calming manner. As he worked on me, he and his assistants demonstrated a seemingly inexhaustible supply of patience, which I happily complimented them on a couple times. If I'd been working on removing something from a car for that long a stretch, there's no way in hell I'd still be that composed.
I'm hoping that I'm still up to going to Chicago tomorrow. I really don't feel like leaving the house right now, but I suppose time will tell. I'm going to go try to eat something again.
