View From the Tenth Level

Saturday, March 07, 2009

I'm still fighting the infection that's been in my jaw, at best guess, for a couple of years, although at this point, I'm getting help from my local oral surgeon.

I was on oral antibiotics for a couple of weeks, but the infection, which is in the bone, didn't budge, except to overflow periodically through my gums. That's when the surgeon mentioned the dreaded words: root therapy. Root therapy, it turns out, is just the newest term for drilling a hole into your jaw via your tooth to a) perform a root canal, and b) irrigate the jaw and apply antibiotics directly to the offending area. The biggest difference between the old root canal and the new root therapy is that a root canal can be done in just over an hour - but root therapy occurs over a couple of months, for over an hour each visit.

Now, I suppose, if the tooth had been completely dead, I could have offered this up to you as a completely painless procedure, and to be honest, after a good dose of novocaine, it almost is. However, if I hear "open wide" one more time, I might throw something.

I've had three such treatments and will have to go back for one more, and each time I leave the surgery, not only am I drooling on myself and lisping when I attempt to speak, I have a great case of temporary lockjaw. The surgeon said that my tooth may be sore after this last treatment, which was particularly deep. What he should have told me was that I would think an elephant was tap dancing on my tooth.

This elephant took great pleasure at distracting me day and night. Her rhythm, I must say, is excellent. Not very good with artistic expression, though.

Several days later, the elephant, thankfully, is slowly getting tired and is just now jumping up and down on an old mattress - just in time for me to get a *$#!*ing nasty case of food poisoning for the weekend. At least I don't have to worry about needing to chew anything for a couple of days.

Labels: tap dancing elephant

posted by Melanie O. at 6:58 PM -

5 Comments:

At 12:32 AM, YesterdaysLace said…

After spending some 15 years going thru what you are experiencing, I can feel badly for you. There are times it seems it would be better to just get rid of the tooth! A partial is not that bad. :)

I do hope you are feeling better soon.

Hugs
At 10:58 PM, gardenbug said…

This should be the last of it and you should have a healthy jaw soon. Get well soon. By the way, do you think that some escaping infection caused your case of the flu? Just a guess.
At 9:56 AM, David said…

Oh dear! It seems everyone I know is having teeth problems these days.
Hope you're better soon!
At 11:05 AM, Melanie O. said…

Well, the tooth is healthy, although it's been used as an access route to my jaw and is now substantially weaker than it was before. Hopefully a cap/rebuild will do the trick once this is over with.

You know, I did wonder if the infection escaped into my body. I don't remember ever being so violently ill in a long time. Bleurgh.
At 1:27 AM, Karen said…

You poor thing. Hopefully this is the last of it and you'll be pain-free soon.