big william's world

To get to the point - I have had a troublesome tooth, on and off, for a couple of years and about two weeks ago it became unbearably painful. Of course I have no insurance for such things any more and I sought out a dentist I could afford, who took Xrays and applied pressure and heat and cold and other stimuli to it. The conclusion was that it might be "cracked tooth syndrome" - a crack in a tooth which can't be seen on xrays or any other way but which causes pain on biting something and even more pain when you release the biting pressure.

I waited a week or so to think about the major decision as to whether to have the tooth removed and a couple of bottles of painkillers later I finally decided to "bite the bullet" and have it taken out.

The dentist said it would take about half an hour.

Three hours later the tooth was out, in several pieces, but the three roots remained firmly seated in my upper jawbone ( or is it my skull) he ground away at bone trying to dig out the roots without success and finally admitted that I would need to go to an Oral Surgeon. He located one for me about an hour away in Lakewood the other side of Denver, pumped me full of anesthetic and sent us off, at 3 in the afternoon to "Lakewood" where I suspect there was never a lake or a wood.

After a long, traffic afflicted drive, I filled out forms, waited two hours and finally settled in the chair of the Oral Surgeon, who looked like Bruce Willis, after 5 when all the other patients were gone. He cautioned me that the tips of the roots were extremely close to a large sinus and it was quite possible that his efforts to dig out the roots would rupture the sinus and cause "air and fluid" to pass into my sinus. Great I thought! he said that with that situation, surgically removing the tooth was much safer than just pulling it out. With great skill, he took my 20th and 21st xrays of the day, filled me with more anesthetic and sawed away at bone until, one by one, he extracted the root tips from their deep sockets. Then he put three neat stitches in my gum, took another set of xrays, and pronounced me good to go. With codeine pills, antibiotics and special mouthwash. We got home about 7 pm after I had originally left at 9.30 am I had to apply icepacks to my cheek to minimize bruising for a few days.

Now it is a week later and things seem ok. I have to make the same journey tomorrow morning for a checkup with the surgeon.

The good news? the first dentist not only did not charge me for what he did but he also picked up the tab for the surgery, which would have been thousands probably.