My week of pain

So it all started last Thursday. Well, I suppose it started before that. The saturday after Thanksgiving, I started to feel myself teething. My third wisdom tooth was coming in. Not the funnest experience. I decided I wanted to wait until after Christmas to get it removed. The pain increased. I hadn't ever experienced such pain with a new tooth. I knew I couldn't handle it until after christmas, so I made an appointment with the dentist to get the tooth removed the next day.

With my past wisdom teeth, it has been a peachy experience. He numbs me up, and the tooth comes right out. 10 minute procedure, including letting me get numb. 3 ibuprophen later and I'm just fine and never have any problems. That is what I expected with this one. boy was I wrong. He gives me 5 shots for the one tooth. He tells me it's very infected. He trys to pull my tooth. no luck. He starts pushing, as hard as he can, on my tooth. He's holding on to my mouth with one hand, and pushing with the other. He breaks tool after tool after tool trying to get the tooth out. Turns out he has to widen my jaw to get the tooth out. He tried to cut my tooth in half and take it out in pieces. no luck. He tried a few times to pull the tooth out only to have the pliers (?) slip off my tooth and hit my top teeth. that didn't feel so good. 45 minutes later, the tooth comes out. It is huge. Turns out it was partially impacted and the roots were going the wrong way, so it ripped up my gums all the way out. ya. it hurt.

After I got home, I was numb. I didn't expect too much pain. More than with the last tooth, but not much. All of a sudden, my mouth is throbbing. It was a pain I had never experienced before. I took a lortab and a few ibuprophen and soon the pain was less, but I was still in so much pain I was crying. My mom called the dentist to see if there was anything else he could do. He prescribed some antibiotics because there was a lot of infection. I stayed loyal to my drugs and antibiotics.

Almost one week later and i am still in constant pain. pain meds lower the pain, but I was litterally in constant pain. Adam and I decided I probably had a dry socket. So tuesday morning, when i almost couldn't go in to work because of the pain, Adam called the dentist to see if he could see me that day to see what was going on. So I had my boss come in for an hour so I could go get it checked out. He told me he thought i probably had a dry socket. Said he could smell the infection, but it didn't really smell like dry socket. I thought i just had that bad of breath :S. He tells me he is going to numb me up and clean out the socket and that I probably just had some food stuck in there. It took 5 shots to get me numb enough to be able to squirt water in and clean it out. The dental assistant also took an xray to see how everything was looking. He got me numb and started cleaning me out. Then we see the x-ray. THERE IS SOMETHING METALIC IN MY JAW!!!! it looks like it's in the socket, so he starts digging around. He re-opens my socket, pulls out my clot, and tries to find this "foreign metalic object". i can feel him scraping my bone. Digging around and turning my already raw gums, into even finer hamburger. After about 30 minutes of digging around, he determines that he can't get it out and that I need to go to the oral surgeon to get it out and that this is the reason I have been in so much pain. He sets up the appointment for me for the next morning at 8 am. great. an hour and a half after i left his office, my gums feel like they are being ripped to shreds. oh my gosh, it was a pain i have never felt before.

So wednesday morning, I go in to have this foreign object removed. They had to put me out, and cut the object out. I was scared out of my mind. so i made jokes. lots of them. well, at least me and my mom thought they were funny. I believe the procedure took all of 10 minutes, but boy am i glad i was out while they did it. When I came to, I was very loopy and for some reason, I couldn't help but cry. I kept trying to crack jokes, but i just sounded and looked so sad, cuz i was crying. i tried to tell them they did a great job at keeping me alive, but it sounded like i was serious and wasn't sure if they could do it cuz tears came and i sounded pathetic. i couldn't help it. it was actually kinda funny. I then came home and slept for 4 more strait hours. This time i got percacet.

oh, i forgot to tell you all. The "foreign metalic object" was a piece of the dentists tool. It ended up in there when he was trying to get the stupid tooth out. Needless to say, now that I have had it out for 36 hours, I feel MUCH better than I have for an entire week. It's amazing how aweful your body will make you feel when you have something in you, that shouldn't be there.

I am so lucky to have such a wonderful and supportive husband and mom. They took turns taking care of me and being with me when I was in so much pain and on the heavier medication. Adam was up with me in the night, getting me ice, more meds and holding me tight when that's the only other thing that would help. My mom spent days with me while Adam had to work. Made me soup and anything else we thought I could eat (still couldn't eat much of anything. probably won't be able to till next week). I am so blessed to have so many that are willing to take care of me. :)

The tooth on the left is the wisdom tooth I had removed one month ago. The one on the right is the one I had removed last week. What an ugly monster of a tooth

This is the x-ray that shows the "foreign metalic object" lodged somewhere in my mouth

This is the x-ray after it was removed. Notice how my socket is no where near as defined as the previous x-ray.