Jaw Update
I feel the need to ramble indignantly about last week, when I had a Very Bad Experience with the Doctors in Manchester, so here goes.
WARNING: If you don't like tooth/mouth-related things (or the idea of doctors being incompetant), I'd advise you not to click. There's not masses of detail, but ... consider yourselves warned.
Firstly, I would not normally name and shame a hospital for being awful - but Manchester Inf. was so horrendous last Wednesday that I don't feel even remotely bad about telling the world.
I had a 9am appointment to see my surgeon. For a week or so beforehand, a red lump had been developing next to my back teeth on the left side (around where the operation took place). The swelling was also coming back, and the pain wasn't getting any better. I was taking steps backwards from the 6th of January (when I went in to see my Dentist -- this will be relevant later).
We were about fifteen minutes late, but we rang at 8:40 to tell them that we would be late -- and they said that was fine. There was virtually no one in the waiting room, so we thought we wouldn't be there long. Wrong. We waited for over an hour. When we went to tell the receptionist, she looked confused and went to talk to the doctors.
They'd forgotten about us.
To their credit (I guess) they did usher us in to see the doctor straight away after that. But it wasn't my surgeon; it was a random doctor I'd never seen before. She didn't have my notes, and it was clear that she didn't want to look in my mouth. When I mentioned that I was given a 4 - 7 day recovery time at the time of surgery to the female doctor, and it had in fact taken 4 weeks to get to this point, she said, "Yeah, well, it's a risk you take." No comfort; no "We'll sort it out"; no sympathy.
Eventually, my Mum (who went in with me) persuaded her to take a look at the red lump (and the ulceration).
She told me to sit in the examination chair - but before she could put her gloves on, a nurse walked in (no knocking, no "Excuse me") and said, "Can you take a look at this other patient's notes, he's making a fuss."
So my doctor said, "Oh, right. I'll not be a minute." And left to get this other person's notes. Now, I'm not a medical professional, but that's not right. You don't leave in the middle of examining one patient to go and look at another's notes. Especially not if that patient's already been waiting for an hour. >(
Anyway, she came back and looked in my mouth (not really making any comments) and then sent me for an x-ray. After the x-ray, she called me back in and got another doctor (still not my surgeon) to come and look.
Please note: they still had no notes. No medical history. No notes on the operation.
Yet, the second doctor felt qualified enough to tell me, "You had a Keratocyst. These can come back, so we'll be giving you yearly x-rays. THe swellinng is from where the cyct was pressing on the bone and the bone has expanded.* You should still be on a diet of mached potato, mushy peas and soup. You can maybe try eating bread in three to four weeks.** And there's literally nothing we can do for your pain and swelling except to tell you to keep taking the tablets. Oh, and we can't tell you when it'll go away, either."
* This was a total lie. There was no swelling of the bone before they took the cyst out. At all. He was talking out of his arse and making assumptions because they had no notes.
** Bear in mind that, at this point, I'd been eating fairly normally for about three weeks. Also bear in mind that I literally cannot eat mash and mushy peas because they make me feel sick, and I am fed up of the sight of soup. D: Also, "you can maybe eat bread after two months" when I'd been told that I could eat my Christmas Dinner four days after the operation ...?!
Also, they seemed totally unconcerned by the fact that I'd been feeling better and then got worse, and equally unconcerned by the red lump.
So, I came out feeling worse than when I went in. I had to drive down to Warwick for a seminar, but since i'd been quite upset in the car my Mum and Dad brought me home again. I am so glad that they did, because on Thursday my Mum took me to the Dentist's.
My Dentist is lovely - and has the added advantage of having seen me before the operation, and after it when I was feeling at my best.
We went in an explained that I'd got worse and that no one at the hospital had listened. She said that it sounded like I had an abcess, probably stemming from a dead nerve in one, possibly two of my back teeth (from the trauma of the operation). She looked in my mouth and - hey - guess what! That red lump? ABCESS.
She was kind of horrified that they'd seen it and let me leave the hospital without treatment for it (they had, in fact, told me to stop taking the antibiotics). She gave me some different, dental antibiotics specifically for post-op. and abcesses.
Also, she confirmed that the doctors at the hospital really were talking out of their arses because she did have my notes, and they quite clearly stated that it's a dentiginous cyst (ie: the kind that can't come back because there's nothing for them to grow from). She also said that we should go with the food-related advice we got initially -- don't eat anything too hard and crunchy, but you don't have to have a diet of nothing but soup.
GOOD NEWS!
Better news: the antibiotics are working! I literally felt better the next day. The swelling has gone down, and I can actually touch the side of my jaw again without it killing me! I'm still getting twinges and some pain, and the abcess is still there, but it's shrinking. Finally I'm actually getting some help.
OK, so I need one (possibly two) root canal operations (which aren't going to be routine because the roots of the tooth that we think has the dead nerve are sawn-off by the cyst). But, y'know, I think I can stand that. Apparently, it's not as big a deal as the cyst-removal, which is always good news.
So yes. Last week wasn't really all that joyous. And I've kind of lost my faith in the medical profession.
I may have to go up to Warwick tomorrow morning for a seminar and then come back in the evening so that I can see my surgeon again (FINALLY) on Tuesday, but I won't know until tomorrow whether he wants to see me or not. :/
.
WARNING: If you don't like tooth/mouth-related things (or the idea of doctors being incompetant), I'd advise you not to click. There's not masses of detail, but ... consider yourselves warned.
Firstly, I would not normally name and shame a hospital for being awful - but Manchester Inf. was so horrendous last Wednesday that I don't feel even remotely bad about telling the world.
I had a 9am appointment to see my surgeon. For a week or so beforehand, a red lump had been developing next to my back teeth on the left side (around where the operation took place). The swelling was also coming back, and the pain wasn't getting any better. I was taking steps backwards from the 6th of January (when I went in to see my Dentist -- this will be relevant later).
We were about fifteen minutes late, but we rang at 8:40 to tell them that we would be late -- and they said that was fine. There was virtually no one in the waiting room, so we thought we wouldn't be there long. Wrong. We waited for over an hour. When we went to tell the receptionist, she looked confused and went to talk to the doctors.
They'd forgotten about us.
To their credit (I guess) they did usher us in to see the doctor straight away after that. But it wasn't my surgeon; it was a random doctor I'd never seen before. She didn't have my notes, and it was clear that she didn't want to look in my mouth. When I mentioned that I was given a 4 - 7 day recovery time at the time of surgery to the female doctor, and it had in fact taken 4 weeks to get to this point, she said, "Yeah, well, it's a risk you take." No comfort; no "We'll sort it out"; no sympathy.
Eventually, my Mum (who went in with me) persuaded her to take a look at the red lump (and the ulceration).
She told me to sit in the examination chair - but before she could put her gloves on, a nurse walked in (no knocking, no "Excuse me") and said, "Can you take a look at this other patient's notes, he's making a fuss."
So my doctor said, "Oh, right. I'll not be a minute." And left to get this other person's notes. Now, I'm not a medical professional, but that's not right. You don't leave in the middle of examining one patient to go and look at another's notes. Especially not if that patient's already been waiting for an hour. >(
Anyway, she came back and looked in my mouth (not really making any comments) and then sent me for an x-ray. After the x-ray, she called me back in and got another doctor (still not my surgeon) to come and look.
Please note: they still had no notes. No medical history. No notes on the operation.
Yet, the second doctor felt qualified enough to tell me, "You had a Keratocyst. These can come back, so we'll be giving you yearly x-rays. THe swellinng is from where the cyct was pressing on the bone and the bone has expanded.* You should still be on a diet of mached potato, mushy peas and soup. You can maybe try eating bread in three to four weeks.** And there's literally nothing we can do for your pain and swelling except to tell you to keep taking the tablets. Oh, and we can't tell you when it'll go away, either."
* This was a total lie. There was no swelling of the bone before they took the cyst out. At all. He was talking out of his arse and making assumptions because they had no notes.
** Bear in mind that, at this point, I'd been eating fairly normally for about three weeks. Also bear in mind that I literally cannot eat mash and mushy peas because they make me feel sick, and I am fed up of the sight of soup. D: Also, "you can maybe eat bread after two months" when I'd been told that I could eat my Christmas Dinner four days after the operation ...?!
Also, they seemed totally unconcerned by the fact that I'd been feeling better and then got worse, and equally unconcerned by the red lump.
So, I came out feeling worse than when I went in. I had to drive down to Warwick for a seminar, but since i'd been quite upset in the car my Mum and Dad brought me home again. I am so glad that they did, because on Thursday my Mum took me to the Dentist's.
My Dentist is lovely - and has the added advantage of having seen me before the operation, and after it when I was feeling at my best.
We went in an explained that I'd got worse and that no one at the hospital had listened. She said that it sounded like I had an abcess, probably stemming from a dead nerve in one, possibly two of my back teeth (from the trauma of the operation). She looked in my mouth and - hey - guess what! That red lump? ABCESS.
She was kind of horrified that they'd seen it and let me leave the hospital without treatment for it (they had, in fact, told me to stop taking the antibiotics). She gave me some different, dental antibiotics specifically for post-op. and abcesses.
Also, she confirmed that the doctors at the hospital really were talking out of their arses because she did have my notes, and they quite clearly stated that it's a dentiginous cyst (ie: the kind that can't come back because there's nothing for them to grow from). She also said that we should go with the food-related advice we got initially -- don't eat anything too hard and crunchy, but you don't have to have a diet of nothing but soup.
GOOD NEWS!
Better news: the antibiotics are working! I literally felt better the next day. The swelling has gone down, and I can actually touch the side of my jaw again without it killing me! I'm still getting twinges and some pain, and the abcess is still there, but it's shrinking. Finally I'm actually getting some help.
OK, so I need one (possibly two) root canal operations (which aren't going to be routine because the roots of the tooth that we think has the dead nerve are sawn-off by the cyst). But, y'know, I think I can stand that. Apparently, it's not as big a deal as the cyst-removal, which is always good news.
So yes. Last week wasn't really all that joyous. And I've kind of lost my faith in the medical profession.
I may have to go up to Warwick tomorrow morning for a seminar and then come back in the evening so that I can see my surgeon again (FINALLY) on Tuesday, but I won't know until tomorrow whether he wants to see me or not. :/
.