Left Work at Tooth-hurty and Didn't Come Back for a Week.

On Jan. 25th I had to leave work early due to a toothache in my gigantic cavity. The doc at the urgent care clinic agreed that it was infected but refused to Rx antibiotics because "you need to see a dentist". Arg. So I made an appointment with the emergency clinic at the dental college and the earliest they could get me in was Wednesday.

Monday night and Tuesday night as well as all day Tuesday I was hurting so badly I couldn't really sleep more than 2 hours at a time even taking max dosages of tylenol and advil. I couldn't even play Minecraft, all I could do was doze in and out in front of the TV.

I went in Wednesday so the dentist prodded and poked and x-rayed... then froze my face and dug out the food particle that was probably fuelling the whole infection as well as giving the whole area a thorough cleaning. The tooth is half gone and they kept suggesting a root canal/cap but I couldn't possibly take even more time off work for the 3-4 visits it would take to get that done. Especially since a year or two might be all it takes to loosen that cap. Unfortunately the folks that do root canals and extractions aren't in on Wednesday so I had to book for Thursday. Thankfully after the ridiculous amount of cleaning, just some advil is enough to keep it from hurting and I actually got some sleep that night.

My poofy jaw Wed night. Made my eye poofy too. Not sure why.

 
So Thursday came, extraction went smoothly, and the dentist that was supervising said that I wouldn't need antibiotics because the infection would leave with the tooth and they'd be sure to clean the area very well. Sounds good...... except it didn't happen like that and even after the swelling went down days later I still had a sore hard lump in the area. It didn't hurt nearly as bad as Tuesday but I still needed to take pills regularly and that didn't seem right.

It was Sunday morning so I called the after hours pager on the paperwork, no call back by dinner so I called again... still no call back before bed so I called the last resort number to get the dental resident on call at the hospital. He told me that the swelling peaks at 3 days which was that day and to not worry.  With that reassurance I went to bed... only to wake up at midnight with puss in my mouth.

At that point I was pissed off and exhausted and I just wanted the whole think to be done already. Went to the walk in Monday morning and the doc there almost tried to shoo me away telling me to go to the dentist. I put my foot down because I had already been there and I didn't need a dentist to tell me puss comes from infections. He agreed to write the Rx and told me I should get in touch with the dentist anyway "if it's not healing as quickly as you'd like". Arg.

Anyway I called the dental clinic office just so they could update my records but it was pretty much impossible to get someone on the phone so I just left them a msg with the pertinent info.

A few days into antibiotics now and feeling a lot better. There's no pain, the hard lump is reduced, and I fell much less exhausted.

Let that be a lesson folks. Take care of your teeth and if you do have to go to a dentist, stick up for yourself when something doesn't seem right.