Tuesday 6 November 2007

Nineteen Years

That's how long a "temporary filling" lasted.
I was told back in 1988 that I better start saving for a crown, as the repair job was a strictly temporary band-aid solution.

Saturday, the filling came out. Along with the titanium screw that had been used to give it structural strength.

Monday I saw the dentist, he took one look and started to get out the extraction implements.

After 5 minutes of using dental pliers, he resorted to scalpel, bone saw, gouges and rasps to scrape out the rest. It was strongly embedded, but as brittle as glasswear. Every time he got a good grip, it shattered.

30 minutes later, I was one tooth and $275 the lighter. And for the very first time with this dentist, it hurt a bit, the anaesthesia wasn't complete. However, when your jaw is being ground down, and mouth filled with various dental appliances, you can't really let them know at the time. Usually an extraction from this guy, even a hard one with knotted and tangled roots, lasts less than a minute. This time over 30, plus the time to put in the stitches.

So I'm a sad sore and sorry Zoe at the moment, lacking inspiration to blog. Maybe I should take a photo of the Cat that adopted us recently, Schrodinger... I'm not certain though.

6 comments:

Lloyd Flack said...

Ouch! Ouch!

My condolences. Hope you're feeling better soon.

I've been told I had eight teeth in need of crowns. Not urgently but they have to be done sooner or later. The medical insurance will only pay out on one crown in any calendar year. The insurance will pay about 40-50% of the cost of a crown. Just had one of them done. Not particularly looking foward to the rest.

mythusmage said...

Hugs and cuddles from this quarter. Just got #32 extracted, and it looks like I'm going to be going through a serious series of antibiotics.

The lesson from our respective adventures? Never miss a dental appointment. When my wound has healed up I'm setting an appointment for a cleaning, and then further appointments for a lower partial. Get a thorough checkup and schedule whatever else needs to be done when you know what needs to be done. A partial to replace the tooth you lost is also a good idea.

BTW, come December expect a donation from this corner for your dental work.

Anonymous said...

Oh dear! You poor thing! I hope that you feel better soon!

As for the Schrödinger, cat pictures are always welcome! :)

Lots of hugs!

Em

Autumn Sandeen said...

My condolances at the loss of your tooth. Is your dentist going to create a fake one for you soon?

As for your kat -- we do want to see pictures. If you post pictures of your kat in your blog, I'll post pictures of my kats Bon-Bon and Maggie in mine. :)

Zoe Brain said...

No replacement in the foreseeable future. It's healed, and there's a chance the partially impacted wisdom tooth behind it will erupt and take its place, as happened on the other side.
Catpix will be forthcoming, but right now Schrodie is not in my good books. Something about 2 $24 /kilo pork medallions waiting to be sauced going missing from the kitchen bench as I was momentarily distracted. Foul play is suspected.

Autumn Sandeen said...

Well, one of my two kats -- Maggie -- has taken to peeing outside of the kat box and all over the apartment. She's driving me crazy, but I still love her tremendously.