The tooth, the whole tooth, and nothing but the tooth.

Okay yes hands up this is another whinging whiny post about my tooth (or actually lack of tooth)

So as  you all know from my incessant whining that I had a broken tooth for several years and by broken I mean there was literally a ring of tooth left lining my gum and nothing else to it - it didn't bother me and you couldnt see it as it was a lower pre-molar.

Fast forward to me finally getting a NHS dentist and my visit for what I thought was a filling last week which turned out to be filling plus tooth extraction! The dentist literally ripped that poor harmless ring of tooth from my mouth - but it didn't come out willingly! He spent around 15 minutes yanking at it with a variety of pliers (torture scenes in movies where they remove the teeth never make it seem this difficult!!!!)

Whilst the anesthetic was still running through my system I felt nothing but this sadly wore off leaving me in the worst pain EVER - yes I finally found something that hurt worse than my daith piercing.

A week after the extraction I was convinced it was infected - seriously why else would my jaw, cheek bone, ears and eye socket all be aching? I got an urgent appointment at the dentist who scared the crap out of me when I arrived by having all the equipment laid out for a root canal and smiling at me insanely whilst saying I assume its your upper tooth that's causing you the problems but don't worry I booked you extra time for a root canal - um no Duffy the Tooth Slayer it's the bloody great big hole in my jaw causing me issues (Side note I actually DO need a root canal and am booked in for that at the end of April and that's it everything will be sparkly in the tooth region)

He examined it - confirmed there was no infection, squirted it with icy cold Cortisol (I cant spell it but you know the mouth numbing antiseptic ) and then informed me I had dry socket probably due to being diabetic and a little overly vigorous with my salt water swishing routine. He then packed the socket with an anesthetic which was absolutely incredible. Seriously that stuff worked straight away, I did wonder why he didn't use it in the first place. I escaped feeling a lot better with strict instructions not to rinse my mouth again until the following day - and a warning that bits of it would start to come out eventually.

For anyone who doesn't know - dry socket is where the blood clot over the gap in the gum where your tooth was doesn't form properly or gets dislodged and spat out. It means that the raw bone and nerves are all exposed to the air and causes really bad  pain, it can also give you a nasty taste in the mouth and bad breath. It's more common in woman, diabetics, people who smoke, people who drink through straws and people who have really poor dental hygiene (that's not me by the way my hygiene is amazing due to my smart tooth brush and ap!) it can also be caused by  you swilling the affected area too hard and literally washing the clot out.

I had 2 blissful pain free days until Saturday where I had what I thought was a hair in my gum which annoyed me until I pulled it out - what came out looked like a mat of cat fur seriously it looked like one of the hairballs that Tisha likes to leave on the floor next to my bed for me to step in. and it was massive like the size of a cotton bud  which is actually relatively small until you consider it was coming from a small hole in my gum and then you realise that's actually a lot.

I was a bit worried that I would get the pain coming back but actually apart from a little sensitivity on Saturday it was fine. Sunday comes and I cook dinner for me and my mum -we had a lovely pie and rice in case your interested because she also had 2 teeth out (I think she gave me some dodgy tooth genes!) and I get that I think I have a hair in my mouth feeling again - if you have animals you will know the feeling well!So I then pull out a huge mat like bigger than before I mean we are talking summat the size of a 5p! After that the pain came back with startling clarity :(

Fast forward to today which is Wednesday and the hole in my gum is still healing and still pretty damn painful - I've been told that you can get it re-packed but it delays the healing process so best to put up with the never ending jaw and gum ache and that the dry socket should clear up in about another week!

So this has all basically turned me into a zombie - I am currently getting up, going to work, coming home napping, getting up and doing a little bit of house work or washing and then back to sleep. I normally get around 5 hours sleep in a  24 hour period- I am currently sleeping from about 5-8pm plus sleeping from like 1 am - 7 am so 9 hours and I am still shattered! It's also making me grumpy (or grumpier than usual)

It's now been 2 weeks since the tooth extraction and I am still in serious amounts of pain which radiates across random parts of the face and also includes something called associated pain in other teeth- so that's jaw, ear, cheek, eye and gum pain with the added bonus of tooth ache in the molars and teeth next to the extraction site! All this for a tooth that when it was removed was less than 5mm!

I had plans to do several more posts on comping as well as update the review section on the blog but all of this is on hold until I feel better :( so normal service will resume but not until this weekend or later.