Today I am going to a dental professional in Richmond, IN at 9am to get a probable root canal. I say probable as the tooth has some issue (well obviously, it is getting a root canal, after all). First off it has a crack and a gold crown that was put on 14.5 years ago. Second the tooth has died in the last 6 to 12 months which means now it is a festering cesspool of infection that so far my immune system has had little problem in controlling. I do have a swollen gum by the tooth and a bit of pain this morning (I have a very high pain threshold so I suspect the average person with a lower pain threshold would be in a lot of pain right now).
I was really hoping that the root canal could not be done and that someone would pull the tooth and than I could get busy on getting another implant. Granted, a root canal is going to cost around $800 and an implant when it is all said and done costs over $3000. I suspect that in another couple of year this tooth will deteriorate more and have to be removed and than I get the choice of either a bridge or an implant. Since bridges and implants cost about the same but an implant lasts for a lifetime and a bridge can break and needs replacing every 10 to 15 years I will opt with the implant. I already have one (#20, I am learning the numbering system for teeth as this will make my conversations with the various dental professionals that poke around in my mouth much much clearer) and I am quite happy with it.
I swear there is rarely a dull moment in my mouth-I was given a very very bad genetic hand of cards as far as my mouth is concerned
Showing posts with label Teeth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Teeth. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Friday, January 25, 2008
I Got Me a New Gold Tooth
For well over a year I have been dealing with getting an implant in my mouth. It all started with a badly infected tooth that also had a couple of cysts that was causing me all sorts of health problems such a sciatica and a lot of other inflammation. Tooth gets yanked in June of 2006 and my body almost instantly gets a lot better. See Baby Teeth for all the poop on the extraction.
After getting the tooth pulled I had a gaping hole in my lower jaw and Dave the dentist suggested I either get a bridge or an implant. So being the Taurus I am I did not make this decision quickly. I did a fair amount of on line research about my options and decided to go with the implant. In March of 2007 I finally got the implant process started. Went to Mark Silvers, the periodontist who removed the periodontal disease from my gums back in 1998/99 (I was 35 and had the mouth of a seventy year old woman). He drilled a hole in my lower jaw. This was not at all painful. He said my jaw was as hard as oak which was very good for an implant but made drilling a slow process. Inserted a titanium screw and sent me away to heal for 3 months and allow the bone to grow into the screw. I came back to be checked for healing and I was ready for step two which was to remove the hardware in my jaw and replace it with the things needed for the Veneer (the gold tooth). What I ended up with was a silver colored post with a phillips end.
I than lived with this metal shaft in my mouth until yesterday when my gold tooth was sized and cemented onto the metal shaft. And now for the first time since June of 2006 I have a tooth in that part of my mouth and it feels weird. It felt far weirder yesterday and by tomorrow it will be almost normal. For a variety of reasons I have not chewed much on the left side of my mouth for probably 4 years and I am finding I have to consciously chew on that side and tell my self it is no longer painful to do so.
I am glad I had this done even though it will take some getting used to and was not cheap
After getting the tooth pulled I had a gaping hole in my lower jaw and Dave the dentist suggested I either get a bridge or an implant. So being the Taurus I am I did not make this decision quickly. I did a fair amount of on line research about my options and decided to go with the implant. In March of 2007 I finally got the implant process started. Went to Mark Silvers, the periodontist who removed the periodontal disease from my gums back in 1998/99 (I was 35 and had the mouth of a seventy year old woman). He drilled a hole in my lower jaw. This was not at all painful. He said my jaw was as hard as oak which was very good for an implant but made drilling a slow process. Inserted a titanium screw and sent me away to heal for 3 months and allow the bone to grow into the screw. I came back to be checked for healing and I was ready for step two which was to remove the hardware in my jaw and replace it with the things needed for the Veneer (the gold tooth). What I ended up with was a silver colored post with a phillips end.
I than lived with this metal shaft in my mouth until yesterday when my gold tooth was sized and cemented onto the metal shaft. And now for the first time since June of 2006 I have a tooth in that part of my mouth and it feels weird. It felt far weirder yesterday and by tomorrow it will be almost normal. For a variety of reasons I have not chewed much on the left side of my mouth for probably 4 years and I am finding I have to consciously chew on that side and tell my self it is no longer painful to do so.
I am glad I had this done even though it will take some getting used to and was not cheap
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Implant Update
It's been a while since I have posted anything here, it's a busy time of year and that is why.
Today I got a titanium screw in my lower jaw and the okay to get a fake tooth screwed on the said titanium screw. I also am allowed to chew on my left side. I will be nice to have a tooth again, it's been about a year since the tooth was pulled and about 3 years since I could chew on the left side of my mouth comfortably.
I am also really glad I opted for a tooth implant instead of a bridge. They cost about he same initially but a bridge can break (my mother broke several) and even if it does not break it has to be replaced every 7 to 15 years. A bridge is also pretty invasive in that the teeth on either side have to be ground down to take the bridge. So you end up with a missing tooth and 2 compromised teeth. And I hear the procedure is pretty painful.
An implant is not nearly as invasive. You get a hole drilled in your jawbone and a screw put into the hole and after 3 to 12 months of healing (I healed up in under 2 months) a veneer (aka fake tooth) is screwed in place and should last a lifetime. And having an implant keeps the jaw bone from deteriorating which it will do with a bridge or dentures. And the procedure is not very painful. I had some pain the first couple of days which ibuprofen took care of and after that hardly any pain at all. Granted, you do have to have fairly dense bone in your jaw for this to work. I happen to have bone about as dense as oak so I was a very, very good candidate.
Yay, no osteoporosis.
Today I got a titanium screw in my lower jaw and the okay to get a fake tooth screwed on the said titanium screw. I also am allowed to chew on my left side. I will be nice to have a tooth again, it's been about a year since the tooth was pulled and about 3 years since I could chew on the left side of my mouth comfortably.
I am also really glad I opted for a tooth implant instead of a bridge. They cost about he same initially but a bridge can break (my mother broke several) and even if it does not break it has to be replaced every 7 to 15 years. A bridge is also pretty invasive in that the teeth on either side have to be ground down to take the bridge. So you end up with a missing tooth and 2 compromised teeth. And I hear the procedure is pretty painful.
An implant is not nearly as invasive. You get a hole drilled in your jawbone and a screw put into the hole and after 3 to 12 months of healing (I healed up in under 2 months) a veneer (aka fake tooth) is screwed in place and should last a lifetime. And having an implant keeps the jaw bone from deteriorating which it will do with a bridge or dentures. And the procedure is not very painful. I had some pain the first couple of days which ibuprofen took care of and after that hardly any pain at all. Granted, you do have to have fairly dense bone in your jaw for this to work. I happen to have bone about as dense as oak so I was a very, very good candidate.
Yay, no osteoporosis.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Baby Teeth
I have been taken task for not posting much this week. Sorry about that but it has been a busy week so I have not had time to blog and the one day I did have time to blog Google was having problems with Blogspot (this blog's host) and I could not log into my account.
C'est la Vie
It's been an eventful week. I lost one of my baby teeth and a big mouthful of infection. Until this week I still had 8 deciduous teeth in my head. Now I have 7.
on Wednesday I had a dentist appointment with Dave Eifert, my dentist for the past 25 or so years. I had been having problems with what I thought was a crowned tooth. I have had quite a bit of pain and infection around the crowned tooth for months. But because the pain was rarely too bad I decided to wait on getting it looked at until my biannual appointment came around.
So I get to my appointment a bit late and get ushered into see Judy, the hygienist. She asks me if I have had any problems since my last visit. This is a question they have to ask but with me it takes on a deeper importance.
There have been serious problems with my mouth over the past 35 years starting with a lot of hardware in my pre-teens to pull teeth out of places they ought not be. If any of you are Simpson's fans and remember the episode where Bart and Lisa are at the orthodontist and he does this computerized imagery of what Lisa's mouth will look like without orthodontia-it shows teeth coming out the top if her skull, etc.. That is my mouth. It's a genetic mess starting with misaligned teeth, missing permanent teeth and in my mid 30's a seriously bad bought with periodontal disease which involved two incredibly painful surgeries and a lifetime of fastidious oral care on my part.
And my answer, this time, is yes, I have had pain around my gold crown and she looks at it and agrees that there is something very amiss but it does not involve the crowned tooth. That is a relief since I carry no health insurance and that crowned tooth will be expensive to fix. It is the premolar next to the crowned tooth that is the problem and she says Dr. Dave will have to look at it after she has cleaned my teeth (which other than the rotten tooth my teeth and gums were in excellent shape). Dave comes in and takes a look and says it should come out now if I have the time. I did have the time so he put me in the room where they do extractions and other minor surgery, take an x-ray, wait 10 minutes for the x-ray to develop. We look at the x-ray and it shows all sorts of bad things happening. I get a needle full of novocain in my jaw and wait 15 minutes for my mouth to numb out and than finally they come in and pull the offending tooth out of my jaw along with a cyst. And scape off a bit of decaying matter on the crowned tooth. The event was not particularly painful and the socket has been healing beautifully.
Since the extraction I have had a lot more energy and a lot of inflammation in my body has gone away. So I guess this tooth infection was getting systemic and affecting a lot more than my jaw. I know that I have had a couple of nasty ear infections in my left ear (this tooth was on the left side of my mouth) in the past 12 months and I believe they were very connected to this growing infection in my mouth. Perhaps my sciatica bouts (also on the left side) are also related. It feels as if this extraction has allowed my chi to flow a lot more freely on the left side of my body.
Now I have to decide if I get a new tooth implanted, a bridge or do nothing. Since I did lose a chewing tooth and it is hard to chew with the left side of my mouth so I don't think the do nothing ploy is realistic. And all other options will bring me some degree of intense and lingering pain as well as being pricey.
All I know is I have lost a part of my dental child (this was a baby tooth that was extracted) and I feel better for it.
C'est la Vie
It's been an eventful week. I lost one of my baby teeth and a big mouthful of infection. Until this week I still had 8 deciduous teeth in my head. Now I have 7.
on Wednesday I had a dentist appointment with Dave Eifert, my dentist for the past 25 or so years. I had been having problems with what I thought was a crowned tooth. I have had quite a bit of pain and infection around the crowned tooth for months. But because the pain was rarely too bad I decided to wait on getting it looked at until my biannual appointment came around.
So I get to my appointment a bit late and get ushered into see Judy, the hygienist. She asks me if I have had any problems since my last visit. This is a question they have to ask but with me it takes on a deeper importance.
There have been serious problems with my mouth over the past 35 years starting with a lot of hardware in my pre-teens to pull teeth out of places they ought not be. If any of you are Simpson's fans and remember the episode where Bart and Lisa are at the orthodontist and he does this computerized imagery of what Lisa's mouth will look like without orthodontia-it shows teeth coming out the top if her skull, etc.. That is my mouth. It's a genetic mess starting with misaligned teeth, missing permanent teeth and in my mid 30's a seriously bad bought with periodontal disease which involved two incredibly painful surgeries and a lifetime of fastidious oral care on my part.
And my answer, this time, is yes, I have had pain around my gold crown and she looks at it and agrees that there is something very amiss but it does not involve the crowned tooth. That is a relief since I carry no health insurance and that crowned tooth will be expensive to fix. It is the premolar next to the crowned tooth that is the problem and she says Dr. Dave will have to look at it after she has cleaned my teeth (which other than the rotten tooth my teeth and gums were in excellent shape). Dave comes in and takes a look and says it should come out now if I have the time. I did have the time so he put me in the room where they do extractions and other minor surgery, take an x-ray, wait 10 minutes for the x-ray to develop. We look at the x-ray and it shows all sorts of bad things happening. I get a needle full of novocain in my jaw and wait 15 minutes for my mouth to numb out and than finally they come in and pull the offending tooth out of my jaw along with a cyst. And scape off a bit of decaying matter on the crowned tooth. The event was not particularly painful and the socket has been healing beautifully.
Since the extraction I have had a lot more energy and a lot of inflammation in my body has gone away. So I guess this tooth infection was getting systemic and affecting a lot more than my jaw. I know that I have had a couple of nasty ear infections in my left ear (this tooth was on the left side of my mouth) in the past 12 months and I believe they were very connected to this growing infection in my mouth. Perhaps my sciatica bouts (also on the left side) are also related. It feels as if this extraction has allowed my chi to flow a lot more freely on the left side of my body.
Now I have to decide if I get a new tooth implanted, a bridge or do nothing. Since I did lose a chewing tooth and it is hard to chew with the left side of my mouth so I don't think the do nothing ploy is realistic. And all other options will bring me some degree of intense and lingering pain as well as being pricey.
All I know is I have lost a part of my dental child (this was a baby tooth that was extracted) and I feel better for it.
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