Since Rex is employed, we finally got dental insurance. So I tried to get Rex to get our dental information starting in September, but since I am not the employee, HR wouldn't talk to me. It took till December for all parties to cooperate with me: Rex, HR, and Humana. So it wasn't until mid-December that Rex and I could finally be seen by the dentists. And then we had to have two different dentists, one that was near our home and one that was near his work.
Rex had one cavity and one crown. But me -- I had a whole mouth of dental work that needed to be done. There were some tiny new fillings, and some old fillings that needed to be replaced. The whole thing is dragging on forever.
So they started with the crown. I was scared because Rex had just had his crown done and he'd had a lot of jaw pain afterward. It was the first time I can remember that I consented to a shot of lidocaine. It was scary and my gums hurt a lot for 10 days, but it went well and I did not experience the jaw problems that Rex had. This procedure takes 3 weeks from start to finish because they have to send the mold out to a lab to get the permanent crown made. When it was finally time for me to go in for my fillings, the dentist broke his finger and had to cancel my appointment.
Nearly 2 months later, one of the teeth that had a large filling in it that needed to be redone was starting to hurt whenever I bit down on it. I called the dental office again (after checking back every couple weeks to make sure they didn't forget about me), I told them that if he was still not able to see patients, I would have to find a new dentist. It so happened that it was the first day they'd been given the go-ahead to set up appointments and I was the first one to be seen.
I came in to have 3 of the fillings done: the problem tooth and two tiny fillings. But we had waited too long. That particular tooth had cracked, front to back. So he filled the two small cavities, and scheduled me for a crown. After the temporary crown was on, the gums didn't hurt like the last time. There was pain, but it was the same kind of pain I had before when I'd bite down. So I went back to the dentist to have him take a look at it. They had my permanent crown ready early, but we couldn't put it on because it turned out that the crack (which you can't actually see) evidently went down past the gumline and the only option was an extraction.
I am too young to lose a tooth! I was terrified, after Rex's dad's extraction experience last fall when his jaws hurt ferociously and then he got an infection with intolerable pain. The dentist consented to take the tooth (with the temporary crown) out of occlusion (file it down so it wouldn't touch any other teeth when I chewed). He said that after a few days, if the possible inflammation didn't go away, then it was indeed a lost cause and the tooth had to go. He saw my fear and said that for patients with tremendous anxiety, it is best to go to an oral surgeon where they can give nitrous oxide so I wouldn't feel anything or know what was going on.
Over the weekend, I talked to a lot of friends who were dental students or dental hygienists and they all agreed with the dentist's conclusion. On Monday, I called to schedule the extraction; I figured if I could deliver a baby without an epidural, I could get a tooth pulled out without nitrous oxide. After getting a blessing from Rex, I went in to the dentist on Wednesday, calm and ready for the extraction. But after 2 hours of numbing agents, the tooth itself was not numb. He tried to pull it out but it wasn't coming because the roots were not totally straight. He was going to cut the tooth in half and extract it in two parts, but as soon as the drill hit the tooth, I jumped. That was the end of that attempt. He referred me to an oral surgeon the next day.
Amy from church drove me there, and I was all jittery. I was grateful that she decided to stay instead of waiting for me to call her to come pick me up. Not only was she wonderful company that kept me distracted from my impending procedure, but there was also no way I would have been coherent enough to call her. I'm pretty sure they gave me general anesthesia because they said they'd be putting me to sleep. (This cost me an extra $300 whereas the extraction without anesthesia would have been more like $50.) I was mostly scared of the needle, but I didn't even feel them put it in. When they woke me up, I couldn't stay awake, and Amy had to recline the car seat so I wouldn't black out. She even stopped at CVS and picked up my meds that I didn't even know I needed. I pretty much slept the rest of the day.
The next few days, I was even more scared than before because I'd been warned about a condition called "dry socket" which is where the blood clot that forms over the cavity that is essential for healing can sometimes come off and not reclot. If that happens, the bone becomes exposed and the pain is excruciating and cannot be dulled by any amount of painkillers. In such a case, the patient must go back to the dentist and get a special packing in the socket which usually has to be reapplied every couple days and the healing process takes twice as long.
I didn't see any red blood clot, and after the first night, it started bleeding again, probably because I tried to sleep laying down. I didn't know if it was the normal amount of oozing I was warned about, or if this was too much. The bleeding stopped and little white strings started forming. I had no pain, but the pain from a dry socket isn't supposed to manifest itself until day 3 or 4. The dentist was out of the office on Friday, and then it was the weekend so there was no one to call except if there was an emergency. And this wasn't an emergency; it was just my anxiety. I was especially careful and diligent about my post-surgery care. I even tried, with moderate success, to sleep propped up even after the recommended 24 hours so that I would not initiate more bleeding. I was relieved when, on the 3rd day, I experienced no pain. Still I was worried and I read everything I could online about the condition. I asked our home teacher for a blessing of comfort, and instead, not only did I receive comfort, but he also blessed me with healing, and that I was already healing faster than normal. Later that day, I found on the internet that a white blood clot is normal and the stringy things are called fibrin.
On Day 4, I still did not experienced any pain, and in fact, the hole seemed to have gotten a little bit smaller. And the blood clot started to look more like what I would imagine a blood clot to look like. However, I had gotten a sore throat the day before (possibly from post-bloody-drip) and now had a cough. I was scared I was going to cough the blood clot out.
The dental assistant called me that morning to make sure I was still okay after the weekend, since I had called her on Friday when the dentist was out. She assured me that coughing at this point wouldn't cause me any harm, but of course I still couldn't suck on cough drops or anything. All I can do was gargle with salt water. (I was already gently rinsing with salt water before the sore throat.) I'm wasn't out of the woods yet, but I was no longer worried.
Day 4 was also the first day I didn't taste blood. I cannot tell you what that does to your appetite! I look forward to the day I can chew real food. For now, I'm on a diet of oatmeal, yogurt, pudding, ice cream, and bananas. (I can't even drink through a straw, so I haven't been drinking smoothies.)
Day 5 seemed to go well, except that I got a headache. I thought it was just from all my coughing and poor sleep. And perhaps it was. But the headache didn't respond to regular pain medicine and it grew steadily until it peaked around 7pm when I could no longer function. Apparently, it was a migraine, which is weird because normally I don't get them unless there is a change in barometric pressure. I didn't take Excedrin Migraine because it contains aspirin (which I was warned not to take post-op since it thins the blood) and because it has caffeine (and I desperately needed sleep). It was a really rough night, sleeping upright again with an excruciating headache. If I started to doze off, Rex's snoring would sound like a lawnmower and jerk me painfully awake. By morning, it finally eased enough to function, but I was still dizzy and the pain was still there (although manageable). I was afraid it would serge back and I was awake enough that a nap wasn't in the cards, so I risked the blood-thinning and took the Excedrin.
Oh, I forgot to mention that the severe sore throat and cough predictably caused me to get laryngitis. So frustrating! The only good thing about laryngitis is that when it happens, the sore throat goes away.
Day 8, the white stuff disappeared after I ate dinner and I worried that it was prematurely gone. But the wound heals from the bottom up and gum was starting to form under that patch so I was alright. It's still weird getting food stuck in there and having to swish with water to get it out, but I'm getting used to it.
I can't wait till this is all over. The estimated healing time is 3 weeks for the gums (3 months for jaw bone). After those 3 weeks, then they can start the process for a bridge. Or after 3 months, an implant. I'm very unhappy about the prospect of compromising the relatively healthy adjacent teeth in order to put in a fake one; I learned that a bridge is where they make a crown for the two teeth on either side of the extracted one and a fake one is suspended between those like a bridge. My insurance doesn't cover implants, and I've been told those cost about three times as much as a bridge. However, after more reading on the internet, it sounds like bridges have a shelf life of 5-15 years, that they require a waterpik/meticulous hygiene, and that your jawbone can weaken/deteriorate due to lack of use, and that later down the road, it is very possible that the two adjacent teeth would need to go as well, thus requiring 3 implants (and bone grafts if the jawbone has indeed deteriorated). I don't know if that is true, but I will have to go ask for more info from my dentist and oral surgeon before I make the decision. I'd rather pay $5K now for 1 permanent fake tooth than $2K now and $15K+ for 3 fake ones 15 years later. Whatever the case, the minimum I have to pay now would be about $2K out of pocket after insurance. And that's not counting the other crown I already had done or the fillings that still need to be done.
So I will meet my insurance's maximum with this procedure. Therefore, I will postpone the fillings until it resets with the next year's insurance. That would only be in September, so it's not like I will have to wait long to get the rest done. Unless I go the implant route, which would take like 6 months and several rounds of visits.
I don't know what the original quote in context by Don Quixote was really referring to: "Every tooth in a man's head is more valuable than a diamond." But it sure feels like this tooth costs as my diamond wedding ring!
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