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.

Return to the Dentist

Today I had my second appointment with the dentist this week. On Monday I had some cavities filled, mostly on the right side of my mouth. Today it was time for the cavities on the left side of my mouth to be repaired. This visit did not go quite as smoothly as Monday's visit. The dentist had a difficult time getting my lower jaw to become numb. She had to inject me with the usual anesthetic three times toward my back lower left tooth, and my jaw still did not really get all that numb, so she ended up using a different anesthetic which she injected down into my gums right in front of the tooth. After that, there were no problems with pain. I did have a problem keeping my mouth open the whole time though as she had to work on my rear lower molar, so I really had to keep my mouth open wide. That ended up being very uncomfortable. Fortunately I made it through the procedure pain free.

The Dentist

I had to go to the dentist this afternoon to have some work done on my teeth. I had some cavities and a few fractures that needed filling. Despite what Mel insists, not all of these dental issues were my fault. The dentist even told me that the fractures had been beyond my control. Mel is right though that I need to brush my teeth better. Anyway, I had a few fillings put in today. I have to go back on Wednesday for the rest. The whole process was rather painless. The dentist did a really good job of numbing my gums prior to injecting the anesthetic into them. I barely even felt the needle as it entered my gums. The wort part of the whole ordeal was having to sit in the dentist's chair for almost an hour and a half with my mouth open most of the time. That was not the most comfortable position to be in for that long. After leaving the dentist I had to stop at Walgreens to pick up a night guard for my teeth as my dentist told me that she saw signs of my grinding my teeth at night. I am going to wait to use it until the remaining teeth are done Wednesday night since the work she does then will likely change the impressions that my teeth leave.

And while I didn't have any experiences like this kid, David, when I left the dentist, for some reason I feel the need to further spread this video which has already had over forty five million views on YouTube.