7-14-11 Thursday & 7-15-11 Friday

I’ve discovered that hot foods or liquids cause me the most pain.  Since a cold pack seemed to relieve my tooth pain I returned back to my regular dentist, reporting to him what had transpired thus far.  They called over to the Endodontist, Dr. Hutcheson and requested a hot test.  He was able to get me in a little later in the day so I went home and managed as best as I could in the meantime.

Eventually I was back in the chair, grunting, whining, and desperate for resolution.  I swished some hot water around in my mouth, the pain came, with ice in hand Dr. Hutcheson tried to diagnose.  He wasn’t very comfortable with the results.  I pushed to have the root canal performed with the logic that it would beat oral surgery.  I was right about one thing.  It would have beaten oral surgery.  He began numbing my mouth.  Oddly, I still felt a little pain pulsing.  He gave me more.  There was faint feeling and so we proceeded.  The root canal was done quickly, swiftly and wonderfully.  I felt so happy.  So relieved.  Now this is how a root canal should be, not like my previous 2 from someone I suspect had no idea what they were doing. 

I went into work a couple of hours late… at 2:30.  I had a little pain.  Hmmm, must be soreness.  2 hours later while on my lunch break, I had more pain so I used an ice pack.  There’s no roots/nerves.  Why am I feeling pain?  Wisdom tooth?  Can’t be.  At 7pm, the pain sucked.  I got it to subside but holy crap!  At 8pm I relapsed.  I left work an hour early.  I watched TV with Jim while icing it down, moaning, whining, complaining, and bitching.

---

Friday morning comes and the pain continues.  Ice won’t even help this bitch anymore.  I wonder if it’s a bottom tooth or something?  I take hot water, pour it into my mouth and leave my mouth open like a Muppet allowing the water to only touch the bottom teeth.  Owwwwwwww!  You gotta be kidding me.  It’s been the bottom tooth all along.  I could still swear it’s the top tooth.  Really!  I call the Endodontist, the office is closed on Fridays.  I didn’t leave an emergency message but rather decide that maybe I can make it through the weekend?  The pain is killing me though.  I started looking online at my insurance company to find another Endo who might be open today.  The problem with this is that they won’t have x-rays, they’ll think I’m nuts once I start going through the story (they’d be right), and it could end up a mess.  I called my Endo back, left a message asking for a referral to someone you might be open.  Dr. Hutcheson returned my call, listened to my craziness and said he’d come in to do it.  He’d have to call me back soon.  So I wait.  It was the worst 2 hours.  The pain was crazy.  I went to Rite-Aid for Orajel and hopes of getting the Vicodin script filled quickly just in case.  I was barely able to drive there.  I made it to and from successfully, the Orajel certainly helped. 

My Endo called me and had me come in. It was strange seeing him in shorts and alone.  He wasn’t able to get any assistants in but he did fine on his own.  We did the warm/cold tests on the bottom tooth.  He took x-rays, he numbed me, the pain went away quickly, root canal was performed, I thanked him profusely and went to work… still numb.  The numbness went away and all was good!  Yay!

I told him I felt dumb for not realizing which tooth truly hurt.  I told him I could even swear now that the upper tooth hurt.  He said that sometimes the nerves cross in the jaw and send mixed signals.  Maybe he said that to make me feel better?!  I’ll be sending him a thank you note either way!

Oh, and he also called me later to check on me!