What's Done and Not Done - Teeth UpdateOk, so I just haven't had time to get into the fiasco from Friday's root canal yet. I'll try to sum as best as possible here then get more into details for the slightly longer version.
The bare-bones status...In short, stage ONE of my root canal is done. The nerves and pulp have been removed and the tooth sterlized. It has a temporary filling on it right now and I'm not allowed to eat on it because it's very fragile. The pain - of course - is gone because I have no nerve in it. The gums were mildly sore Friday but basically fine since. In two weeks (give or take), I'm supposed to go
back to the root canal doctor for the other half where they'll take off the temp filling, actually widen the hole they drilled and stuff the root canals full of an artificial material to replace the nerves that used to be there. It's basically plugging the holes. Then I get another temp filling. At which point, I have to go back to my regular dentist right away and get a crown. But not just a normal crown, no. There's some kind of re-building up of the tooth that needs to be done as well as a post of some sort for strength added. (That part alone accounts for $1,526.00 of work.) The root canal dentist's final price was $929 but he's letting me pay that in payments. The primary dentist...I'm not sure what I can do about that. Not getting the crown isn't an option because without the crown, the tooth is too weakened to be used.
And don't forget, I still have THREE CAVITIES on top of all of this that need to be done! Going back from March now! (And of course, as these things go, they're on my right side - two bottom, one on top - and I can currently only eat on my right side because my root canal tooth is top left.)
More Story leading up to and including the root canal...So, the slightly longer goes back a couple weeks. It started hurting pretty bad and I was just enduring it with helps of extra strength tylenol. But I was working on a bracelet order late Thursday-into-very-early-Friday morning when this pain hit me really hard and really fast. I mean, like a truck hit me. I took some tylenol right away but it wasn't enough. I started crying. I couldn't help it. It was somewhere around 2:45am or so. Well, Love heard me crying and woke up. For the next 30-45 minutes, I just sobbed. I was in agony. It was fire and needles in my tooth, cheek and across my jaw. All up along the side of my face. It hurt so bad. I cried and cried because I couldn't
not. When it wasn't kicking in, Love got up and got me two more tylenol. It was another half hour of so after
that when it finally started to take the edge off. Then slowly work it's way towards center and dim the pain so I could fall - exhausted - to sleep. We decided that I (of course) needed to see the dentist the next day (Friday) to find out what was going on. Neither of us wanted to deal with that again.
Now, Love couldn't take off work and take me because Wednesday and Thursday he was out sick. (Poor thing even picked up conjunctivitis probably from someone at work.) I ended up sleeping a little longer then I planned (but it was because of how drained I was from being in pain and crying so much the night before), so around 10:30am I called my mom. I didn't want to have to call her because her husband is off on Fridays. And he gets very cranky about her doing things on that day - especially if they don't involve his plans. But I didn't have a choice. She said of course she'd come get me. So I called the dentist. First she didn't believe me that I had a tooth that needed a root canal. Kept telling me it only needed a filling. Uh, yeah, lady, you're waaaay behind here. I went for the filling in October and found out I needed a root canal in it. Trust me, I wish I were wrong. Then she told me she couldn't see me until Monday.
"Look," I said to her.
"I was in some of the worst pain I've ever been in my entire life last night. This is an em-ger-gen-cy and I need to see a dentist, TODAY." She put me on hold and finally said to come in at 1pm and wait for an opening. So I did.
Got in almost right away. They took an x-ray and to my surprise it wasn't
abscessed. I was sure for as much pain as I was in that it had to be. Turns out, that there was very little bacteria there. The real problem was the nerve was dying. Apparently nerves can go quietly or they can hurt like mad. Guess which mine opted for? :/ Though it is a back molar, and of all teeth, the "best" one to face removal (read: will cause the least amount of future damage to gums and other teeth, though not damage free), because of my age, they recommended I try to save the tooth if possible. I guess the younger you, the worse the long-term effects of pulling teeth are. Since it wasn't abscessed, they strongly recommended I keep the tooth. Since I really, really,
really didn't want to pull it myself anyway, I agreed. (I know some people think it's no big deal, but for me, it's horrifically barberic and I feel very strongly against it as anything but a last resort. I didn't feel I was at last resort stage yet. I have a personal...phobia? of teeth pulling and if I can do anything to keep from having to do it myself, I will.)
So off we went to the endodontic dentist's office.
We get there and I fill out the paperwork and they bring me back. They do the exam and tell me that they can start the root canal right now if I want. I ask about paying it in payments. Initially, they tell me 1/3 today, 1/3 in two weeks and a post-dated check for the last 1/3 after that. Which, there's no way I can do. So I ask to use their phone. I call Love at work. By this point, I've broken down crying. I have my mom yelling at me about wanting to see the specialist in the first place - she'd have me pull out
all my teeth I think sometimes for as pro-pulling as she's been about this situation (to the tune of six-non-stop weeks of badgering, messages and emails telling me the "right" thing to do is pull it.) - and I'm just shattered mentally. The stress, the poor sleep the night before, the memory of the pain, facing the weekend and not knowing what was going to happen...ugh. So I'm on the phone with Love for like a half an hour. I couldn't figure out what to do. And I knew we could never pay it off that quickly. I made the decision to just wait. My regular dentist gave me a painkiller prescription to take so I thought I'd get through the weekend and think about what I wanted to do more.
The dental assistant came up to me. She told me the dentist wanted to get me out of pain, let me do the first part right now, and just take what I could pay today. Moving forward, we'd just go with what I could pay. So I decided that was way more then fair of them and at the very least, having the first step done would mean I'd be out of pain and buy myself a few more weeks at least to seriously look at the situation and make a plan. So I took her up on the offer and we went in.
The process wasn't that bad. Uncomfortable but not bad. The worst part was the x-rays they had to take. I have the single worst gag reflex on the planet so it was very hard getting the little wand in place. (They, like my normal dentist, use a digital x-ray now. Way easier and only 10% of the radiation of old fashioned ones.) Went home afterwards. By that time it was around 5:30pm or so. I took some Advil as recommended - it helps cut down on inflamation - and dozed off on the couch. By Saturday, I was fine. No pain at all. The gums had a very slight tenderness to them, but it was far less then the soreness after a filling. I hope the second stage is as light on the pain.
So...now I need to go back to get the next stage done. They normally recommend 2 weeks but I can go 3 or 4 weeks if need be. And basically so long as I pay them every month, it'll be ok. The biggest thing is going to be how to deal with the crown half of the cost.
Of course, all of this is going on in December. Where we have the holiday costs and our rent went up $75 a month starting this month. (!!) Yeah, I know. But I couldn't afford to move so I was stuck. They totally screwed us over. Tack in the on-going problems like the car - who's driver side window broke - and you can see that though I'm temporarily out of pain physically, well, stress and emotionally, I'm no where near out of the woods.
Damn. I've been writing this for an hour now. It's 11:35am. My mom's coming over today so I need to get ready. I have more and other updates - couple days at the temp job, Cirque, order status and jewelry items - but that will have to wait until later.
Needless to say though, it's been a hell of a few days now.
~ change comes to :: miss m ::
at 12/06/2005 10:38:00 AM ~
~
