[Yoda]

I feel so yukky. I h@ve h@d lots of p@in for sever@l d@ys & I @m sick of it. I h@ve h@d @ he@d@che for two solid d@ys & tod@y my j@w hurts. Tylenol & n@prosyn don't help. I took codeine eight hours @go & still hurt so took @nother just now & doubled my benzodizepines b@ck to the dose I w@s on for 2 ye@rs (doc s@id pl@y with dose to see if less will work which h@d been working so so but I w@nt sleep so I won't hurt).

I h@ve @n @ppt with @ student @t @ dent@l school Oct 22 but he won't do @nything th@t d@y - just @ssess & m@ke @ c@re pl@n & submit to supervising dentist. I s@w @ licensed dentist in Feb when I w@s supposed to see @ student for free so the dentist didn't ch@rge me & s@id I m@y need @ root c@n@l on one but it is @nother hurting this week. I c@n't w@it until The student fin@lly gets to work on my teeth & numbs me. Re@dy for @ root c@n@l right this minute - Scr@pe th@t nerve outt@ there @lre@dy!!!!!!!!!

I h@ve been putting benzoc@ine on the tooth & gum which helps @ little bit for twenty minutes. I swe@r if I h@d @ syringe & needle I would inject the gum with benzoc@ine but I don't. I @lw@ys h@ve prednisone on h@nd for @sthm@ so I even took th@t hoping it would reduce the infl@mm@tion. Running out of ide@s...

Usu@lly I toler@te p@in well but I @m tired of it now @nd re@dy for it to Quit @lre@dy.

& of course my text looks biZ@rre bec@use the letter before B is dying on my computer. grrrrr

[Yoda]

Hooray!!!!!!!!

I found @ sterile TB syringe & researched dent@L techniques. Cle@rly I didn't w@nt to do @ nerve block bec@use th@t is more inv@sive but infiltr@tion of the gums is e@sy so I infiltr@ted the @ffected gum e@sily & then swished with Listerine so cle@nse the injection site so it won't get infected. I h@ve infiltr@ted lidoc@ine in non-dent@l sites in hospit@l p@tients to prep for procedures so it w@s no big de@l to do my gum. Short term solution but I will t@ke wh@t I c@n get @t the moment

[January]

Oh my stars, Yoda! I'm so sorry you're in such dire straits.

Is there anyway you could go to the ER at a hospital that has a dental clinic? They may take you as an emergency case.

[Yoda]

Thanks. They do not have an emergency dental clinic here even though it is the largest city in the state. Go figure. Last December I broke a tooth and then had the fillings fall out of an adjacent tooth so the nerve was exposed from the loss of the filling. I went to HealthPlus and they gave me a rx for codiene & an antibiotic. I called several different dentists in the area checking prices. The cheapest was $250 to remove each tooth (wisdom tooth is impacted so depending on how the roots lay it might have been three total to extract) plus $150 for xrays and it would take six weeks to get me in and then they would assess and reschedule me later for the actual treatment.

I had an appt scheduled in Jan with a student dentist in Morgantown which is a three hour drive each way but the student clinic only charges for material costs but unfortunately on my appt day we got six inches of snow so I had to cancel. I tried to tough it out but food would get in the crevice where the nerve was exposed and I had to scrape food out so it wouldn't get infected and let me tell you what scraping a nerve is not much fun but it had to be done. Of course putting benzocaine directly on the nerve reduces the pain for a short while but you can't get the benzocaine onto the nerve until you clean out the food. The upside is it hurt so much to eat that I lost thirty pounds from December - February.

I finally had reached my limit and knew that the school of dentistry had an emergency clinic in Morgantown on weekdays. Technically I didn't consider my problem an emergency. When I think dental emergency I think of somebody who has had facial trauma and lost a tooth that needs to be reimplanted emergently. But they don't define it that strictly so I hopped in the car & drove three hours & they xrayed it and then sat me in the chair. The whole thing was very assembly line. Everybody had their job and they did it quickly and did it well. One dentist did the xray, another injected the novocaine and then another extracted the tooth. I was sitting there with a 4x4 gauze on the wound and he asks me if the other needs to come out. Well gee I don't know. Perhaps it could have been saved with a root canal but I knew they wouldn't do that then so I shrugged and mumbled I guess and he took it out. And the total cost for everything was only $200.

But even though my pain was approaching my limits this week I know I can't use the emergency clinic in Morgantown for a root canal because that is a longer more involved procedure. Quite looking forward to my student dentist doing it soon though.

I actually slept decent for about five hours. I have a headache still but I think it is probably referred tooth pain so doing the tylenol/ASA thing so far and won't use codeine unless it is quite bad because codeine is hard to come by so I make them last. Hoping I don't have to inject the gum again because even though it worked there still is a small risk of infection but glad to know that I can play emergency dentist at home when I have to. Good thing I am not afraid of needles, I guess.

There is probably no one else in the world looking forward to a root canal more than me right now. Reminds me of Steve Martin in Little Shop of Horrors and Bill Murray with his maschochistic dental obsession. I am so there.

[billieJ]

Dear Yoda,My Gosh, I'm sorry you are in such a predicament. I have had significant dental pain in my life, and I know that it is about as bad as it gets! I am so sorry. I hope that you have had your root canal by now or at least are on antibiotics. I can see that you know more about this than I do, but I believe the antibiotics are usually needed for an infected tooth, prior to the root canal? Empathizing with You ~ billieJ

[January]

Yoda, maybe you can go to the hospital in your town that has a dental clinic and ask for a grant through the hospital. That way you won't pay out of pocket and they can take you as an emergency so you won't have to wait so long. That's just terrible be in such pain and have to wait like that!

[Rhapsody]

Thinking of YOU...

[Yoda]

Tooth pain is doing better for couple of days. Still looking forward to seeing student dentist but I can cope right now.

I realized that I had unintentionally provoked the pain. When I saw the licensed dentist when I had asked for a student dentist a year ago the dentist was so nice. He evaluated me and told me to ask my student about my gun disease and treatment and gave me lots of advice and because they had scheduled me in error with a licensed dentist he didn't charge me a penny. He said well while I am here I will do a little bit of cleaning (with no insurance I was way overdue) and chipped away a bit at the plaque & tartar & he gave me some free Sensodyne toothpaste & said to rinse with a salt solution for a few days & use the toothpaste because my teeth would likely hurt because the plaque & tartar that builds up acts like an insulation to pain and when it is removed it can be painful to the tooth for awhile. I didn't have much problem then but a week or so ago I was feeling on my molar with my finger and there was a bump on the side & I am like what is with my tooth? Is this a cavity gone awry or what and then I realized that it was simply tartar that had built up on the side of the tooth. I started scratching it with my fingernail & was able to break it apart & then started scratching off most of the build up. If I had dental tools & a good mirror I would do my own cleanings but alas I don't so I scraped the side of the tooth pretty good & removed quite a bit of tartar. That is good for the tooth but I had forgotten what the dentist had said about that making the tooth sensitive so neglected the saline & sensodyne. It didn't hurt right then. It was a couple of days later though when the pain got wicked. Clearly it was the tooth sensitivity causing the pain rather than a cavity gone bad because if it had been a deep nerve pain simply numbing the gum would not have blocked the pain. The topical benzocaine was a good idea. And numbing the gum was a good idea to stop the crazy bad pain but short term solution. But now I realize what happened & I am doing saline & sensodyne again with a little topical benzocaine on the gum when it hurts. I am encouraged because at the time I was thinking my tooth is in bad shape & surely will need a root canal. But likely not. It was a different molar the dentist mentioned had a cavity & might possibly need a root canal way back then so likely I might just need a good cleaning on the tooth that was hurting so bad this week and some treatment for gum disease. I am inconsistent with flossing (bad Yoda) but I love Listerine. It burns like heck but I always think how many bacteria are dying in the alcohol while I swish so don't mind that it burns. I usually use Listerine twice a day. Good stuff.

So anyway I just wanted to post something positive now that I have figured out what happened & how to manage it. So glad that dentist informed me. I know only basic tooth structure from being a paramedic/nurse and learned what to do with a tooth that has been knocked out by trauma that might be able to be reinplanted (put the tooth in milk & transport to ED) but I don't know much else. I am wondering what the treatment for gum disease is. I know I should be better flossing to help on that end but I am looking forward to talking to my dental student about gum disease & learning more.

Fortunately I have a good tolerance to pain which helps. I did natural childbirth & was thinking, this is it? I thought it would be intolerable but it wasn't so bad. Nausea though shuts me down. Low low tolerance for nausea. I would rather do natural childbirth ten times again rather than go through the first trimester nausea again.

I don't know what influences it but working in open heart recovery I would see a lot of variability in folks' tolerance to pain. They would be scared of the chest hurting after the surgery but the chest has fewer nerves so it was the legs that hurt more from where they harvested the veins. And chest tube removal but it is over quickly. We did some studies to using pain meds to decrease pain during CT removal & basically they didn't help much. Something odd that I noticed in my fifteen years there was that men complained more of pain than women. I always wondered why. Is their tolerance different or some chemical hormone effect or physiology or what? I would love to read some good research about that.

[VickiesPath]

It's been scientifically proven that men are bigger babies than women.