Dentist report - misery, woe and despair.
Feb. 28th, 2007 12:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
st_aurafinaI went in for a filling and came out minus one tooth. He reviewed the x-ray from last week, and decided that the best option was an extraction, with a implant fitted later. He said the root canal would probably fail, because the tooth had short roots, and would become fragile.
The implant requires oral surgery under twilight sedation - they screw a titanium bolt into my jaw, and allow bone to grow over it, then (in some months), I go back to have an incision to open the area up, and a tooth implant gets fitted to the bolt. It's apparently super strong.
In the meantime, I have to have impressions taken for a plate to be made that will hold the gap open in my mouth and stop all my teeth moving around. It's going to take about six or seven months to be fully resolved. I have to see the oral surgeon in Geelong, which means a two hour drive each way, at least three times, but at least it will probably be during the week, which is much easier for me to arrange the time off work. The surgeon only visits up this end of the state on Saturdays - the most difficult time to arrange time off for me.
The extraction was as horrible as it could have been - the tooth broke and there was a lot of tugging and pulling with giant terrifying pliers, and some digging with some other tool that I didn't see because my eyes were shut. I must have had some kind of fight or flight reaction early on, because the dentist asked if I wanted to stop and get the tooth removed by an oral surgeon. But he'd already started with the rocking and tugging - and I thought that if I left then, I would never have come back. I had anaesthetic, and more anaesthetic, and it was still painful, but I could handle the pain. I couldn't handle the scraping noise of the pliers against my tooth and the splintering sound of my tooth breaking. The nurse had to hold my head, so the dentist could pull. It was every kind of awful, and I'll never watch that scene in Alias again.
On the other hand, the iPod was awesome. I turned it up really, really loud when there were horrible noises, and it was my friend when they left me while the anaesthetic was stating to work. Thank you,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
musamea for your warrior-woman play-list, I think it helped. I survived, at least.
The implant requires oral surgery under twilight sedation - they screw a titanium bolt into my jaw, and allow bone to grow over it, then (in some months), I go back to have an incision to open the area up, and a tooth implant gets fitted to the bolt. It's apparently super strong.
In the meantime, I have to have impressions taken for a plate to be made that will hold the gap open in my mouth and stop all my teeth moving around. It's going to take about six or seven months to be fully resolved. I have to see the oral surgeon in Geelong, which means a two hour drive each way, at least three times, but at least it will probably be during the week, which is much easier for me to arrange the time off work. The surgeon only visits up this end of the state on Saturdays - the most difficult time to arrange time off for me.
The extraction was as horrible as it could have been - the tooth broke and there was a lot of tugging and pulling with giant terrifying pliers, and some digging with some other tool that I didn't see because my eyes were shut. I must have had some kind of fight or flight reaction early on, because the dentist asked if I wanted to stop and get the tooth removed by an oral surgeon. But he'd already started with the rocking and tugging - and I thought that if I left then, I would never have come back. I had anaesthetic, and more anaesthetic, and it was still painful, but I could handle the pain. I couldn't handle the scraping noise of the pliers against my tooth and the splintering sound of my tooth breaking. The nurse had to hold my head, so the dentist could pull. It was every kind of awful, and I'll never watch that scene in Alias again.
On the other hand, the iPod was awesome. I turned it up really, really loud when there were horrible noises, and it was my friend when they left me while the anaesthetic was stating to work. Thank you,
musamea for your warrior-woman play-list, I think it helped. I survived, at least.