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Toothy fun times
So there's this wacky spot in my teeth where I have what is basically an extra tooth growing; it's an offshoot of one of my premolars, connected to it below the gumline. This extra tooth forms a triangle with its parent premolar and with the tooth next to it, and that area is next to impossible to get clean.
Unsurprisingly, this area developed a cavity.
It's my first cavity ever -- combination of really good teeth luck and being diligent about dentist visits etc. But given the tooth situation it was sort of inevitable.
The fun part about this whole thing is that FOP (my underlying medical condition) reacts to trauma -- and that includes a) over stretching the jaw, and b) any sort of injection, including novocaine for dental procedures. And any jaw related trauma results in my jaw locking up, and that is obviously bad.
So Plan A was to deal with the cavity without anaesthesia (my dentist office didn't have the ability to do any sort of gas sedation), and that happened today.
Most of the procedure (drilling out the decay area) was ... uncomfortable but not too horrible. There were two times where nerves got nudged, but other than that the worst part was them keeping the area dry (which was a very cold sensation, not pain but definitely not fun). And it was hard keeping my tongue out of the way; it kept slithering over.
The filling itself was a bit more painful, since I think it pressed (directly or indirectly) against the nerve, but the residual ache from that is mostly gone at this point.
The dentist was really impressed at how well I did, given that it was apparently a fairly deep cavity.
However, while the problem is temporarily taken care of (the decay has been completely cleared out) it is not permanently fixed -- it's likely that I will get other cavities or worse in there, just because it's a situation that is asking for trouble. (He did try a few things to see if there was some way to create a bridge between the three teeth in the area, but then that poses a problem for the gum beneath it.) The "extra tooth" can't be removed easily on its own because it is a fully formed tooth complete with a root canal, so he recommends that I have the entire tooth, the parent premolar as well as the extra lobe, taken out (which will need to be done under general anaesthesia -- joy). It's not an emergency situation or anything, but he strongly recommends doing that before another problem develops.
So ... on to Plan B, I guess? Where plan b = oral surgery yay.
Unsurprisingly, this area developed a cavity.
It's my first cavity ever -- combination of really good teeth luck and being diligent about dentist visits etc. But given the tooth situation it was sort of inevitable.
The fun part about this whole thing is that FOP (my underlying medical condition) reacts to trauma -- and that includes a) over stretching the jaw, and b) any sort of injection, including novocaine for dental procedures. And any jaw related trauma results in my jaw locking up, and that is obviously bad.
So Plan A was to deal with the cavity without anaesthesia (my dentist office didn't have the ability to do any sort of gas sedation), and that happened today.
Most of the procedure (drilling out the decay area) was ... uncomfortable but not too horrible. There were two times where nerves got nudged, but other than that the worst part was them keeping the area dry (which was a very cold sensation, not pain but definitely not fun). And it was hard keeping my tongue out of the way; it kept slithering over.
The filling itself was a bit more painful, since I think it pressed (directly or indirectly) against the nerve, but the residual ache from that is mostly gone at this point.
The dentist was really impressed at how well I did, given that it was apparently a fairly deep cavity.
However, while the problem is temporarily taken care of (the decay has been completely cleared out) it is not permanently fixed -- it's likely that I will get other cavities or worse in there, just because it's a situation that is asking for trouble. (He did try a few things to see if there was some way to create a bridge between the three teeth in the area, but then that poses a problem for the gum beneath it.) The "extra tooth" can't be removed easily on its own because it is a fully formed tooth complete with a root canal, so he recommends that I have the entire tooth, the parent premolar as well as the extra lobe, taken out (which will need to be done under general anaesthesia -- joy). It's not an emergency situation or anything, but he strongly recommends doing that before another problem develops.
So ... on to Plan B, I guess? Where plan b = oral surgery yay.