Worn down

On my continued journey to dental health, I went back to Dr. T's office Friday morning.  As we drove down early in the morning (it's about 2.5 hrs to get there) I realized that I wasn't quite feeling as jazzed about getting poked and prodded in my mouth as I usually am. Ok...maybe that's an exaggeration, I'm never particularly jazzed about dental work, but I have dreamed about a career in hygiene or assisting and I really don't mind the dental work too much. The freezing is the worst part, and as bad as it is, it's over in 10 seconds. In my mind, that's not really worth getting worked up about.

Then there's the over-riding fact that I get to see such a wonderfully close friend, who I miss dearly since we've moved. It's hard not to feel like a VIP when she is always so caring while I'm there (and also when I'm not!) I often think about how much energy she must expend while caring for me. I know her well, and I know how much she truly cares for all her patients....thinking of them when they are gone, and always going out of her way to help everyone. So I know that I must be a drain at times, and I'm so grateful that she's always there for me while I go through this special kind of hell.

Anyways...this is to say that I've never actually dreaded going in for dental work.

Not this time. It wasn't the pain I was worried about....I just felt so drained. Exhausted. Tired of this grind. I guess you can say I just wasn't emotionally equipped to handle what was coming.

This visit was to work on the 3rd quadrant teeth (lower left). In order to get at tooth 35, the badly broken premolar, the freezing goes deep into the muscle where your mouth hinges behind your molars. By deep, I mean 2.5 cm (betcha didn't really want to know that, did you?) But, since the 3rd quadrant is on the left side of your face, and that side is the more damaged side (the condyle is totally displaced, not coming together, and outside of the joint), the muscles on that side are terribly seized. She tried twice to inject the freezing, and couldn't get the needle more than 2 mm into my muscle. It was so painful, I thought she had gotten it done.  So she tried freezing the area in a couple of different ways, by injecting into the gum and then into the canals of the tooth once they were drilled.  That worked to a degree, but we didn't get the root canal done before I could feel it again. And I mean FEEL IT. So she temporarily plugged it and we'll give it another go next week.  The rest of the root canals in the region can be frozen by other injection sites, so here's hoping we can get them done!!! Then I'm ready to have the 33 extracted and the braces on. Then, the big wait begins.. for reals.

In the meantime, my mouth is feeling awful again. I've definitely caught a sore throat (talk about the icing on the cake...) and my 3rd quadrant teeth are in pain something fierce. The 33 was really aching after I got the arch bars off, but that went away...and the pain seemed to move to the top fronts. Now that's gone, and it's back to the 33. It kind of feels like the pain migrates around my mouth. I'm sure that's got something to do with all the dental work happening.

My masseter and temporalis muscles (see the photo below) are in agony. Somehow it feels like my head is in a vice right around my temples, and my left TM joint in particular just plain hurts.

I take muscle relaxers at bed to help with the tightness sometimes, and I think tonight's going to be one of those nights.

Tomorrow I'm heading to see my orthodontist. I need a referral to the oral surgeon to remove the 33, and he's going to start the initial braces process. He's also scheduled extra time for me to just talk about what's going to happen, and what his part will be in it all. He's also incredibly compassionate, so I can't wait to get a better feel for what's coming my way orthodontically.  I'll try to update on that soon!