Armchair dentists! Diagnose my mysterious dental trauma!

Plaid Adder

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Mon Jun-28-04 05:57 PM
Original message

Armchair dentists! Diagnose my mysterious dental trauma!

OK, so I went to the dentist a couple weeks ago to have some fillings done (two in the lower left, one in the upper left, both in the back). Dentist noted that my wisdom tooth back there ahd a "huge cavity" and would need to come out but suggested I go to an oral surgeon for all that. Sent me home all novocained up.

Novocaine wears of. As soon as the numbness is gone, I am in so much pain all I can do is sit there and weep.

I call the dentist back. Since the pain seems to get worse whenever I open and close my mouth, he says it's probably 'trismus,' which I later discover is a catchall medical term for anything that limits the opening of the jaws. He says it should wear off in a few days, meanwhile take a lot of ibuprofen.

So I go home. IT doesn't get any better. In fact it gets worse. I go into see him a few days later. He pokes around for a while and decides it must be that the wisdom tooth has finally decided to go supernova. So he gets me an emergency appointment with an oral surgeon, who extracts my wisdom tooth in a relatively non-nightmarish procedure that takes about 10 minutes and does not appear to encounter any complications (tooth doesn't break off, there's no sawing or crunching or grinding or anything). Sends me home with a prescription for Vicodin.

So, they both call me the next day to see how I'm doing. I tell them that although I still hurt, I do feel better, which is true. They are both very relieved.

A few days go by. I'm not feelin' better any more. In addition to waking up every morning feeling like someone has drilled a hole in the back of my jaw and just left it there, I have pain running all the way along the left side of my lower jaw plus occasional sharp twinges of pain in what feels like individual teeth...and these twinges HURT LIKE A BITCH! My partner can tell when they're happening because all of a sudden I shudder, twitch, quote half of Dick Cheney's pithiest saying, and clutch my head.

Really, I am not a pain wuss. But this is just fucking insane. I've been eating nothing but mush since I got the fillings done. Not wishing to become a Vicodin addict, I have been getting through the day with 6 Advil and then popping a Vicodin at night. Every time I think it's getting better, it then gets worse.

So I call my dentist over the weekend. He says it sounds like I've developed 'dry socket' and I should talk to the oral surgeon. The oral surgeon says to come in this morning and he'll treat it. I go in in the morning. He has a look in there. "Doesn't seem like typical dry socket," he says. NEvertheless, he treats me for dry socket anyway--by stuffing a strip of medicated gauze down into the socket, which HURTS LIKE A BITCH! He says that if it is indeed dry socket, the pain should be gone in 5 minutes to an hour.

Well, the pain does not disappear in an hour. It's definitely still there. However, it is no longer on the excruciating end of the scale, and so I wander around with this gauze in my socket and hope for the best. At times, it seems to be almost gone; at times, it comes back loud and clear. Doesn't seem to be related to much of anything; it actually hurt less after lunch than it did a couple hours later. Finally at around 3:00 I pop my first 2 Advil of the day.

In my currently Advilled state I am more or less pain-free...but I know that ain't gonna last.

So, WTF is wrong with me? Neither of these highly skilled professionals seems to have an answer--so what the hell, take a stab at it. Any ideas?

C ya,

The Plaid Adder