Oh, My Aching Tooth!

It began over a month ago, when I went to a new dentist. It was a nightmare appointment that lasted three hours and 45 minutes, just to fill a tooth! While I was in this dentist's chair, she told me about a terrible accident she had about six years ago. Her horse, that she was leading, was spooked by something; rared up, hitting her in the head and knocking her to the ground; then landed on her, breaking her neck. As she was working on my tooth she told me she's had a terrible problem with her hands shaking, ever since her recovery. But now she's on some meds that control it "pretty well." Way to make a patient feel confident!

From that day on, the tooth gave me problems (it hadn't hurt before the treatment). And this past weekend, it went ballistic. By Sunday night I knew I would have to get to a dentist . . . and not the one I had seen a month ago. I was up, with the tooth, a number of times during the night, and spent some time looking on the internet for options. I had seen a specialist several years ago, so left a message on his machine, asking if he could please see me as soon as possible on Monday morning. Bless his heart, he worked me in. He was able to take an x-ray, confirm that the tooth was abscessed, give me a prescription for pain, and use his clout to get me into another specialist, who would do a root canal for me, the next morning (today).

Sadly, upon taking only the first dose of the pain medicine, I became very sick, and the medicine and its evil effects didn't leave my system for about 10 hours. Ugh! No Percocet for me ever again!

Today I went to the other dentist, and he performed the root canal. He had me in and out in less than an hour (unlike dentist #1's three hours and 45 minutes!). He started me on an antibiotic. I was still feeling pretty icky until about 5:00 this evening, but now things are looking up. I even made it out to vote around 3:00 (I was thankful there was no line). I'll have to go back to have a crown put on, in about two weeks, but I think the worst of this is over.

I hope to go back to work tomorrow, and am ever so grateful to be feeling up to it again.