Dental Woes

Woke up with a mild toothache yesterday morning. We went about our day though. Watched the first four episodes of Veep then went down to the pool. We were going to be having a community BBQ at the pool so we went upstairs to dry off (use the restroom) and then we were going to come back down and eat and socialize. Well suddenly the toothache got worse. Jeff sprang into action and around 3:45 ended up at a local dentist office to just get the pain taken care of before having an actual appointment on Monday.

Well the tooth was too far gone and needed to be taken out. Long story short, I haven't been to the dentist on a regular basis because I haven't had insurance for... well practically my whole life. So yes, I have a few bad teeth. It's actually something I'm deeply ashamed about, though I'm trying to reframe my perspective on that. Anyway, they ended up extracting the tooth which took about 45 minutes. I ended up with about three syringes of Novocain in my mouth and afterwards half my face was partially numb, like I'd had a stroke. Throughout the procedure I was trying to keep myself calm and my muscles ended up absorbing most of the tension. By the time the dentist finished my entire body was shaking.

But all went well and I've been given some generic Vicodin to help with the pain and soreness. I have a follow-up appointment next Friday to make sure it's looking good. The dentist has identified a few areas he can address with the rest of my teeth so I'm going to see how that can be arranged, what with payment plan options and whatnot. I'm probably going to get one other tooth extracted and I have two other teeth that I know need fillings pretty soon. Unfortunately I have a lot of cavities. Maybe it's time to adjust my diet to exclude some sugars. That may help in the longrun.

I'm pretty sore this morning, can't open my mouth all the way, and in general I feel like I've been through battle or something. Nothing the Vicodin can't handle, but I don't want to have to rely on it to feel better. I think my body will heal itself naturally quickly.

Lesson learned: I need to be more proactive about the health of my teeth.