A Crazy Week for Teeth

This has been the craziest week for teeth since my son had his wisdom teeth out 16 years ago. First, about a week ago my daughter found out she had to have oral surgery to have gold wires attached to her two upper eye teeth so they could be pulled down into place out of her gums so they wouldn't calcify and beceome a part of her upper jaw and never come in. So, she did that and wasn't very happy about having to be put under for it or for the stitches on both sides of her upper gums.

Simaltaneously, I have been trying to get my dentist to take me seriously regarding an abscess on my left upper tooth between my incisor and my eye tooth. After about a month of him not taking me seriously even though I have had abscesses before that needed root canals I got pretty frustrated at no one taking me seriously. I think many dentists have people that grind their teeth at night and create a condition that mimicks what an abscess feels like lately and might have thought this was happening to me. However, after about 10 root canals or more since I was 25 I KNOW what an abscess feels like, especially when the weird pains shoot through your nerves across your face and you feel run down. So, finally out of desperation I asked my dentist to do root canal anyway because I knew after a month that this was dangerous not to treat. Especially since people can die from untreated Abscesses in their gums from teeth that either need to be pulled or given a root canal to save the tooth.

So, he began drilling down into the single root tooth between one of my main incisors and eye teeth on the top left of my mouth. However, it just got stranger and stranger. As he started to drill he hit no nerve. So he kept taking X-rays and found that the nerve was not only very deep but that the tooth did not have a normal root. Finally, after 3 trys (on three days) he went out the side of the tooth deep in the root canal and black blood and pus blew out under pressure. Also, another reason I knew something was very wrong is that periodically blood under pressure would come down into my mouth about every 3 days (about a teaspoon of blood) that tasted bad and made me feel faint if I swallowed it. However, since it came very slowly it was hard to get enough at one time to actually spit it out.

He mentioned after the blood and pus blew out when he drilled through the wall of the root and into the abscess by accident that I might need to see an oral surgeon because he didn't know then if he could save the tooth. Also, because he then knew for sure there was an abscess by all the black blood he felt an oral surgeon was needed. So I went to an oral surgeon yesterday and today. And because I don't like to be put unconscious even during a Colonoscopy I had him pull the tooth with only a local of Carbocaine (I don't do epinephrine). So, even though it wasn't very painful when he shot the carbocaine in a lot seeped back out into my mouth and started to make the inside of my mouth numb and I started to choke as I swallowed a little. This was kind of upsetting so I asked for a cup to rinse the excess out of my mouth so I wouldn't lose my gag reflex from numbness. So I just kept gargling and rinsing my mouth out until it was better. So I calmed myself down doing this until the doctor came in and got ready to extract the tooth. He was worried that the tooth would break from the drilling into two or more pieces from the drilling the dentist had already done. However, even though it torqued my neck from the pressure he had to exert to twist and pull the tooth out, since he was a very experienced surgeon he was able to get it out in one piece for which I was very grateful. He said the tooth was calcified which was why the whole thing was weird. The nerve was turned into a calcium deposit as if the tooth had been fossilized. So this was why the tooth had abscessed because it was no longer a normal tooth. So when I had all my upper teeth from eye tooth to eye tooth capped last year I think it stressed the roots and it caused a problem for this particular tooth as the roots moved to accommodate the new caps.

This is a big deal for me because I have been able to keep all my adult teeth all my life (except wisdom teeth) so this is my first adult tooth that I had no choice but to pull. So, eventually I will either get a bridge or do an implant into my upper jaw. It would probably be better to do an implant as you usually never have problems again with one of those. My cousin and son swear by their implants (my son has one) and my cousin says he wishes all his teeth were implants. However, they are not cheap if you get someone to do them right.