Toothache

I have a toothache. It started with a pain in my cheek last Thursday. At first I thought it was a tooth, but then I thought this feels a whole lot like sinus pain, which I am more than familiar with. But there was also a twinge coming from my lower jaw, just below the main pain.

I went to the dentist on Friday. They took a digital X-ray and photographed a suspect tooth with a very cool magic wand kind of camera. He looked and then he got out the cold probe, one of the nastiest pieces of equipment in the dentist's armory, and started testing teeth in the upper jaw. All of them reacted instantly to the cold, all except one which seemed to be completely immune. He left it the probe on long enough that I could feel the tooth getting cold, but I never felt any pain and I certainly did not get a sharp reaction like I did with the other teeth.

I left there with the problem unresolved. Maybe it's a tooth, maybe it's a sinus. If it's a tooth, he was confident that it would reveal itself shortly, and sure enough on Monday it did. I sat down to eat something and when I took a bite, Zingo! That smarts! It got so bad that by dinner time I was not able to eat even a single slice of pizza. Even by using only the other (left) side of my mouth, if the bad tooth even came in contact with the opposing tooth I would get an intense pain. And this is while I am taking 2 Naproxen every 12 hours.

I went to the dentist again today and she takes an X-ray and it looks like the sheath that covers the roots of the troublesome tooth has gone missing from the very tip of one root. The only solution is a root canal, which basically involves removing all of the living tissue from the inside of the tooth. I have an appointment with the specialist on Friday. Meanwhile I'm on a mostly liquid diet, though I did manage to eat a couple of slices of pizza this evening.

How did people manage in the bad old days, the days before we got real pain killers? Oh, just like now, because you can't get real pain killers any more because of some jackasses in congress stirring up shit for some kind of political game. My dentist won't even write prescriptions for real pain meds any more because of all the paperwork involved. I am really beginning to hate the government.

Maybe I need to make friends with my local pusher. Medical insurance won't cover the expense, but you can bet there won't be any bureaucratic bullshit.