Pain!

For the past several days I have been experiencing severe tooth pain. Before I continue though, I must point out that I realize there are some people who live with almost constant pain daily. I do not mean to diminish their experiences, but this pain is something I am just not used to.

It began last Friday night when I was getting ready to go to bed in my hotel room while on my business trip to San Antonio, Texas. Fortunately the hotel was next to a 24-hour grocery store, so I went there and bought some Advil. That did the trick, and my pain went away allowing me to sleep. On Saturday I again experienced some discomfort while on my flight home, so I took some more ibuprofen. At this point the pain was not intolerable.

Things changed on Sunday. The pain in my mouth was getting progressively worse to the point where the Advil was having very little effect. I began alternating the Advil with Motrin, which did not seem to help much either. The pain was so bad that I only slept about three hours Sunday night.

Monday I went to the dentist and discovered that I had an abscess and was told that the root canal that I had done in October 2008 was failing and would need to be redone. Because it would have to be done through an existing crown, I was referred to an endodontist to have the procedure done.

The earliest I could get in to be seen by the endodontist was Wednesday at noon, so I had to deal with the pain until then. The dentist I saw Monday did prescribe me an antibiotic as well as Vicodin. On Tuesday when the Vicodin did not control the pain for more than an hour at a time, she prescribed me Percocet. I ended up alternating between them as neither seemed to do the trick. I did sleep better Tuesday than I did on either Sunday or Monday nights, but still did not get a good, restful sleep.

Yesterday I made it into the endodontist. After viewing the X-ray of my tooth, I was told that a root canal would be difficult to do, although he was confident he could do it. My other option was to just have the tooth extracted. While the endodontist would have preferred for me to keep the tooth, he said that given the difficulty in fixing it, he would not blame me if I wanted to just have it removed. After giving me an injection of Novocaine, so I could make my decision without being influenced by immediate pain, I ended up deciding to just have the tooth extracted. I really wanted to get it done that day, it was significantly less costly to have it extracted than to have a root canal, and I did not want to have to worry about future issues with the tooth.

I ended up in the dental surgeon's office at 3:00 yesterday afternoon, and by 4:00 I was walking out without any pain. I am very happy this is done. I think this was the worst pain I had ever experienced. The pain from when I had my gallbladder attacks last year may have been worse, but that pain did not persist like this pain did.