From the Brain of Matty

dentistry (24.07.08 6:42 am)

For those who aren't subscribers to the church of Facebook and who don't tweet, you may not be aware of my recent dental saga.

The other day (Monday? I forget) my top right back molar (7_⌟, 17, or 2, depending on your preferred notation) started hurting to high heaven. By evening the pain was excruciating. At times I was balled up on the floor trying to breathe. Needless to say I didn't get much sleep Monday night. Tuesday morning I phoned my dentist, and their earlier appointment was Wednesday at 14:30. So I took the appointment, and overdosed myself on ibuprofen (based on my body mass, metabolism, and known resistance to pain killers, I decided that 2000mb/day was more appropriate than the recommended 1200mg/day—and it sort of worked). I survived the day at work, but wasn't overly productive. Then I survived the night, albeit slightly fitfully. Then I survived another half day at work, before my lovely wife came and gave me a lift to the dentist.

The dentist already had a fair idea where and what the problem would be, and offered me two choices: a root canal, or an extraction. Being that it's the stupid jagged tooth right up the back that I chipped as a child, find hard to brush, and have had problems with before, I told him to pull it out. He noted his desire to not pull out all my teeth (my last two visits have been molar extractions), then pulled out the stupid tooth. He commented that it seemed hypoplastic and was probably not as strong as my other (rather strong) teeth.

As a side note, due to my resistance to pain killers, he now automatically gives me two ampoules (a double dose) of xylocaine or septocaine or whatever it is he uses in the needle.

It was all done and over by 15:00. He told me not to eat anything until I could feel my cheek again, and all the usual stuff about care for the wound. He suggested I would start to feel the pain in three or four hours so I should get some Nurofen Plus into my system before then. Unfortunately the needles wore off around 16:00, while I was still at work. Fortunately the lovely office manager found some codeine tablets, so I had two of them and another hit of ibuprofen, which got me through.

By dinner time that'd all worn off, but I felt fine. The bleeding had stopped. All was gravy. So we had hamburgers for dinner.

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