Bump and Grind

First things first. Get your minds out of the gutters. This is not that kind of post cause I'm not that kind of girl. Duh.

This post is an addendum of sorts to this post, all about my teeth related woes.

Back in July I had problems with my one tooth. Naturally, I went to the dentist and found out I had a cavity. The cavity was filled. Problem solved, right? Wrong. Days after the cavity was filled the tooth hurt. Now some soreness is to be expected after they excavate your tooth like it was a mine in Egypt. But persistent pain is another matter all together.

Eventually the pain subsided and I resumed normal everyday activites like not wincing while eating hot soup. Then one fateful night in September, the pain woke me up in the middle of the night.

That same darn tooth...again.

At this point, I blamed my dentist. I was only there a little over a month ago and already I have pain in that same tooth. But I was stuck on what to do. I could go to a different dentist and risk having to withstand the pain while waiting to get an appointment or get in right away with the dentist I've been going to. I opted for door number two.

When I went back this time they first tried to take an x-ray of the tooth that was in pain. Did I mention that this tooth is also one of my wisdom teeth? (Of which I still have all of them) They failed in successfully getting a good x-ray though because they had a hard time getting me to open my mouth wide enough. So my dentist went with the sophisticated plan B; plow around in my mouth, hitting teeth until I yelled "Ow!"

When he finally hit paydirt we realized the pain seemed to be coming from the same tooth. I asked him how that could be considering the tooth had just been filled. He said he didn't know, maybe some part of the cavity was missed since it's in a hard to reach region. Then I asked what seemed like a no brainer to me-- should the tooth simply be taken out? Now this isn't to say that I'm doing backflips over the idea of oral surgery, but even I know when a tooth is down for the count. He still said he didn't think that was necessary.

So after sufficiently numbing me he went back in, cursing and sighing his way through the whole procedure. Finally he said he saw the problem, part of the cavity had come out or something like that. It's hard to recall exact details when your dentist is literally lying on your head with a drill in one hand. Once again he filled the tooth. Once he was done, I felt no pain, mainly because I was novacained up and I said, "Well, I hope not to see you soon!"

Now there are some people who think I shouldn't have to pay to get the tooth filled this second time around since it's so close to the first time it was filled. Those some people include me. But getting a cavity filled is not like purchasing a pair of jeans from Kohl's. There's no 90 day, money back guarantee when it comes to teeth, so my guess is I'll be billed, again.

But it gets better. It's been over a week since the tooth has been worked on and STILL I have pain. I know I suffer from TMJ and I know I grind, but I've been faithfully wearing my mouth guard every night since my last scare. Meanwhile during the day I'm under a lot of stress at work. I can't imagine why.

Now I'm caught between a tooth and a hard place. I can wait it out and hope for the best or go back and complain again. Or I could go somewhere else, like an oral surgeon, and get his opinion on whether or not the tooth should simply be taken out. You can understand, I'm sure, my reservations no matter which option I choose. I'm not a wimp about pain, but the idea of going through oral surgery just to be wrong is mind-numbing enough, not to mention the fact they say that the older you get, the more complicated a procedure it becomes.

In the meantime, an Advil a day keeps the tooth related pain at bay.