Friday evening my tooth started hurting. Meh, whatever, right? More whiskey'll cure that.
But as the night wore on, and the drinks and aspirins piled up, it kept hurting. A LOT. By Saturday morning I was popping vicodins like tictacs and trying to find a dentist who would see me on a Saturday. I found someone in my neighborhood who would see me Monday, and figured, ok, I can make it. More vicodin! I was a _little_ worried about teaching on Monday, but really, priorities, I mean, come on. I fired off an email to my parents to let them know what was up and they called IMMEDIATELY, panicked. omg you have to go to a dentist today or you will DIE. They literally thought I would die. Well ok, it's their credit card, so I called a few more places and found someone on Lincoln and Belmont who would see me. A very nice lady who basically opened her office just for me, which was very sweet, but doesn't quite make up for what came next.
A friend of mine gave me a ride to her office, I get there, she does an x-ray and is like, ok, so you've got an infection. Normally we'd do a root canal, but in this case it's between two teeth, so I'm not really sure what to do. So, uh... I'll give you a prescription for some antibiotics, and I'll "lance" the infection site and try to release some of its evil. But don't worry, I'll numb it first!
So she throws some topical anaesthetic on my gums and gives me an injection. Ouch. A minute or two later, my cheek is totally numb. She decides to clean around the infected area a bit.
Me: Ouch!
Her: Uh... you can feel that?
Me: Uh... yeah...
3 injections later, she's all, it must be numb now! And goes in with the sharp instrument. It was not numb. Not at all.
Her: Hmmm, I'm squeezing it, but there's no puss or anything coming out, just blood.
Me: aaaaaaaargggghcirngfnggnkjdngkjerng!
And she sent me on my merry way and told me to come back Monday and they'd, you know, figure something out.
So I'm taking the antibiotics, and meanwhile, the lump inside my gums is the size of a tictac and hurts like a motherfucker.
Sidenote: My boyfriend has no desire to look at it. In fact, he refuses to look at it. How weird is that?
So I decided to go with the appointment I originally had on Monday instead. The woman there, god bless her, took one look at it and was like, ok, yeah, here's what we need to do. She looked at the antibiotics I was prescribed and said they're way too weak. I told her they couldn't numb it and she wondered who this person was who doesn't know that if you wanna numb the inside of someone's gums, you have to do the injection in the back of their mouth. Yikes.
Anyways, long story short, there's some mysterious thing in my mouth that is eating my bones (which, when you think about it, is FUCKING TERRIFYING) and I'm on a shit-ton of antibiotics right now, with surgery scheduled for Saturday. They're gonna do a bone graft. I asked where the bone comes from, and apparently it's either synthetic, dead person, or animal. I'm hoping for animal. Specifically shark. Please Lord, give me shark teeth. I will be the awesomest human ever. Please.
By the way, class on Monday was... ok. 18 bright eyed bushy tailed students, and meanwhile I'm a total space cadet having spent the weekend on pain killers, so I'm like, OK! LET'S LEARN SHIT! And forgetting what I'm talking about every five minutes. Yikes. They didn't seem to mind too much. I had them list reasons for writing autobiographies, and we made a big list, which I know at some point I initially was going to use to make some good points, but instead I kinda stared at it for a minute and blinked a lot and was like, OK! WHAT A GREAT LIST, EH? EH? yowzers. Hopefully they don't all drop out before next class...
But as the night wore on, and the drinks and aspirins piled up, it kept hurting. A LOT. By Saturday morning I was popping vicodins like tictacs and trying to find a dentist who would see me on a Saturday. I found someone in my neighborhood who would see me Monday, and figured, ok, I can make it. More vicodin! I was a _little_ worried about teaching on Monday, but really, priorities, I mean, come on. I fired off an email to my parents to let them know what was up and they called IMMEDIATELY, panicked. omg you have to go to a dentist today or you will DIE. They literally thought I would die. Well ok, it's their credit card, so I called a few more places and found someone on Lincoln and Belmont who would see me. A very nice lady who basically opened her office just for me, which was very sweet, but doesn't quite make up for what came next.
A friend of mine gave me a ride to her office, I get there, she does an x-ray and is like, ok, so you've got an infection. Normally we'd do a root canal, but in this case it's between two teeth, so I'm not really sure what to do. So, uh... I'll give you a prescription for some antibiotics, and I'll "lance" the infection site and try to release some of its evil. But don't worry, I'll numb it first!
So she throws some topical anaesthetic on my gums and gives me an injection. Ouch. A minute or two later, my cheek is totally numb. She decides to clean around the infected area a bit.
Me: Ouch!
Her: Uh... you can feel that?
Me: Uh... yeah...
3 injections later, she's all, it must be numb now! And goes in with the sharp instrument. It was not numb. Not at all.
Her: Hmmm, I'm squeezing it, but there's no puss or anything coming out, just blood.
Me: aaaaaaaargggghcirngfnggnkjdngkjerng!
And she sent me on my merry way and told me to come back Monday and they'd, you know, figure something out.
So I'm taking the antibiotics, and meanwhile, the lump inside my gums is the size of a tictac and hurts like a motherfucker.
Sidenote: My boyfriend has no desire to look at it. In fact, he refuses to look at it. How weird is that?
So I decided to go with the appointment I originally had on Monday instead. The woman there, god bless her, took one look at it and was like, ok, yeah, here's what we need to do. She looked at the antibiotics I was prescribed and said they're way too weak. I told her they couldn't numb it and she wondered who this person was who doesn't know that if you wanna numb the inside of someone's gums, you have to do the injection in the back of their mouth. Yikes.
Anyways, long story short, there's some mysterious thing in my mouth that is eating my bones (which, when you think about it, is FUCKING TERRIFYING) and I'm on a shit-ton of antibiotics right now, with surgery scheduled for Saturday. They're gonna do a bone graft. I asked where the bone comes from, and apparently it's either synthetic, dead person, or animal. I'm hoping for animal. Specifically shark. Please Lord, give me shark teeth. I will be the awesomest human ever. Please.
By the way, class on Monday was... ok. 18 bright eyed bushy tailed students, and meanwhile I'm a total space cadet having spent the weekend on pain killers, so I'm like, OK! LET'S LEARN SHIT! And forgetting what I'm talking about every five minutes. Yikes. They didn't seem to mind too much. I had them list reasons for writing autobiographies, and we made a big list, which I know at some point I initially was going to use to make some good points, but instead I kinda stared at it for a minute and blinked a lot and was like, OK! WHAT A GREAT LIST, EH? EH? yowzers. Hopefully they don't all drop out before next class...
VIEW 7 of 7 COMMENTS
Though your own experience might put into question this hypothesis.
And just because you haven't seen a dentist in 6 years doesn't mean your teeth are safe from bone-disintegrating bacteria.
yuck.
Seriously,
what is the cause of this crazy infection and how do i prevent it?