My Dental Adventure

Oh the adventure I had!

About three weeks ago I had my regular dental checkup. I had a little tooth sensitivity on an upper left tooth. Surprise! My filling was dislodged and needed to be replaced. An appointment was scheduled for the following week. A couple days after the first appointment I found a bump on my lower right gum. When I went to get the filling done I told my dentist about the bump. He gave me that "you are not going to be happy about this" look. Then he told me that it looked like an abscess and that I might need to have the tooth removed.

I went to the Dr. who did the root canal on that tooth 10 years back. He took an x-ray and told me that the initial crack in the tooth (reason for root canal) had continued cracking all the way down to the root. There was significant bone loss.

Then comes the $$$$ and insurance (or apparently lack thereof). I am quoted with a total of $4000 for this long procedure of tooth removal, dental implant and crown. At the same time I am being told that I do not have dental insurance. This same thing was told to me last year (until they said, "Oops, sorry! You DO have insurance). Still working on this problem.

Then I went in to see the periodontist to have a consult and see if I needed an antibiotic for the abscess (this happened on Monday of this week: 5-10-10). He said I definitely needed an antibiotic because the infection was pretty bad. He then said that we should take out the tooth ASAP, because if we waited, the dental implant might not take due to the infection.

So.........Tuesday (yesterday) morning I went in to get my tooth pulled. I was all prepared with my iPod to listen to while he cracked out my tooth. Here's the account in bullet points:

*Happy Gas begins.
*Nothing happens because I'm breathing through my mouth.
*Start breathing through nose.
*Start to freak out because gas is so strong it's making me feel SUPER out of control. I tell Dr. that "I don't like this. It's too strong." He turns it down.
*Extraction begins
*Dental implant goes in
*I'm in la-la land
*An hour and 15 min. later I'm finished

My sweet friend Mary (along with Baby Matthew - who calls me "Key" - love it!) dropped me off and picked me up from my appointment. The rest of the day I took a few happy pills and slept on the couch.

Now I have a big hole in my mouth with a spider web of stitches running across it. Next week is a checkup, then in a few weeks I will be "CROWNED". Too bad it's not crowned Queen of Teeth. :)

Here are some pictures of the periodontist office when you first walk in:


There is nobody upfront to greet you. Only two monitors.After you press start you enter your name and it says, "If nobody comes to get you in 10 minutes, check in with the receptionist inside the door." So basically, if the computer doesn't do it's job, THEN you can talk with a human. Until then, don't bug us!"