well, that was fast
Went to the dentist this morning (the VA doesn't do dentistry for whatever reason) and I figured it would be routine X-Ray of jaw area, cleaning & scraping, and another appointment to do the drill & fill to fix whatever was giving me the dull pain in my face.
Nope. They still do the X-rays, but it's digital now so you get to viddy your rotten & decaying zoobies on the flat screen over the chair doubleplusquicklike. And mine was a bad, bad tooth, yes indeed. My first molar on the lower left side had not only developed a cavity, but an infected cavity at that, so there was no point in half measures. It would have to come out. Several shots of novocaine (with a healthy assist from Mr. Tank) and two hours of drilling/prying/hacking/suturing later, I was without the infected molar* and sent home by way of CVS, where they charged me far, far out the ass for a week's worth of Clindamycin. I skipped the Tylenol 3 since I already have ample supplies of generic Tylenol and a few leftover oxycodones in case the pain got to be Too Much, which in fact it did not too long after I got home. Still hurts, but the oxycodone makes me not care, which is as much as I expect from my painkillers.
The next stage in the proceedings is to install a bridge of the finest zirconium (no shit, that's what they use these days) sometime in the next 30-90 days. This is not going to be cheap; fortunately they accept payment over time, which is good because I think I won't finish paying on this until the end of next tax season. Fuck jetpacks, man; where the hell are my regeneration stimulators?
*Considering how long and difficult the extraction was, she fully deserves to take it home and have it mounted, like a trophy deer head.
Nope. They still do the X-rays, but it's digital now so you get to viddy your rotten & decaying zoobies on the flat screen over the chair doubleplusquicklike. And mine was a bad, bad tooth, yes indeed. My first molar on the lower left side had not only developed a cavity, but an infected cavity at that, so there was no point in half measures. It would have to come out. Several shots of novocaine (with a healthy assist from Mr. Tank) and two hours of drilling/prying/hacking/suturing later, I was without the infected molar* and sent home by way of CVS, where they charged me far, far out the ass for a week's worth of Clindamycin. I skipped the Tylenol 3 since I already have ample supplies of generic Tylenol and a few leftover oxycodones in case the pain got to be Too Much, which in fact it did not too long after I got home. Still hurts, but the oxycodone makes me not care, which is as much as I expect from my painkillers.
The next stage in the proceedings is to install a bridge of the finest zirconium (no shit, that's what they use these days) sometime in the next 30-90 days. This is not going to be cheap; fortunately they accept payment over time, which is good because I think I won't finish paying on this until the end of next tax season. Fuck jetpacks, man; where the hell are my regeneration stimulators?
*Considering how long and difficult the extraction was, she fully deserves to take it home and have it mounted, like a trophy deer head.