Tooth Fairies, Reprise

You may remember my adventures over the summer with the cracked tooth and root canal. My tooth apparently was too cracked, and so even after the root canal procedure was finished the tooth kept getting infected (yuck) and I couldn't get a crown installed. So the endodontist recommended removal, and the oral surgeon concurred.

I have an infinite capacity for denial and avoidance when something is likely to be expensive or painful or both.

Since "tooth extraction" sounds both expensive and painful, of course I put off having the tooth extracted (or even thinking about having the tooth extracted) for as long as humanly possible, which was all the way until this past Sunday, when the soft filling that the endodontist installed when he did the root canal -- the stuff that was supposed to remain inside the tooth sealed carefully under the crown that was, sadly, never installed -- suddenly fell out while I was brushing my teeth.

"Ick! Eeek! WTF?!?" I thought. (My vocabulary degenerates rapidly when I am scared or hurt or both...)

Even I know that one is not supposed to have a giant hole in one's tooth that probably extends all the way through the tooth to the underlying bone. Bad plan.

So I finally had the tooth extracted yesterday.

It was a relatively quick procedure. Once the novocaine took effect, it took the oral surgeon all of about 5 minutes to get the tooth out of my mouth.

I wish I could say it was also painless.

But I am hurting today. Not so much where the tooth was, although that is obviously a little tender. No, the bigger problem is that my jaw is very sore and stiff -- even more than it was after the root canal, which took two hours of drilling and disinfecting and packing the tooth with the soft filler material -- I can hardly open my mouth to drink water or talk. Forget eating - not gonna happen. How can this be? One would think I would have been more sore after the two hour drill-a-thon than after a 5 minute procedure... Maybe it was the 45 minutes of "biting down" on the gauze afterwards?

I wish I were young enough to at least get the small consolation of a $2 bill from the tooth fairy...

Then again, my track record with the tooth fairy isn't so good; maybe it's better that I'm not waiting for her to show her lovely face.

All I can say at this point is ... pain meds + empty stomach = good times!

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I can hardly wait to start the tooth implant process.