D.O.P.-T. (day before yesterday)

[weofodthignen]

I had an 8 am appointment to have a tooth extracted. My opinion of dentists is already that they are licensed sadists, but the clinic I am chained to by my insurance plan has a solid row of 1s on Yelp. They had told me they would be phoning in a prescription for me that I must get beforehand. That turned out to be 3 prescriptions - antibiotic as well as painkiller (I'd wondered whether they had something that combined the two), plus a knockout pill, which I wasn't too pleased to have sprung on me. Especially since the instructions were to take it an hour before the appointment - which would have meant on the 22 bus. So I grumblingly chugged it while waiting in the rain for the place to open. Apparently I was supposed to take it under the dentist's supervision. She proceeded to plonk me in the chair with some program blaring on the TV about wiseguys who buy loud shirts and vintage toys at charity shops and in abandoned storage locker sales in Las Vegas and turn them around for profit. I suppose they thought this was soporific. She also fed me one antibiotic and one painkiller. Then I was told to shut my eyes and after at least 3 agonising injections and a bit of slapping me around about the cheek and jaw, drilling commenced. I dimly remember having my other extraction when I was about 11 - of a permanent tooth in my upper jaw that had barely crowned but was in the wrong place after my braces had shoved the rest of my teeth back - this was on the same side but kind of the opposite, the tooth having broken off low in my jaw together with the crown, and having been in there painlessly rotting away for months and months. The other extraction, I remember pliers, and at one point a knee on my chest. This time, it was a team effort with much sotto voce discussion - and drilling, and it felt as if they were trying to push the thing down through my jaw rather than try to get it up and out. Then someone shoved an enormous wad of fabric in my mouth and told me to keep it there, and eventually the housemate was there and I was evicted, with a follow-up appointment already made, a folder of instructions shoved into my hand (no coffee!), and I was being told I wasn't supposed to be talking. The housemate walked the hounds separately while I bathed and went to bed; I woke briefly that evening when Bear decided to rub himself against me like a sponge at the car wash, so I finally evicted the by then totally gross wad of gauze from my mouth and took another antibiotic pill before going back to bed.

It doesn't hurt as much as I believe they thought it would. So I can limit my use of the painkilling zombie drug. But the antibiotic and my stomach disagree greatly. Waiting for the bus in the cold makes me want to throw up. Riding the bus makes me want to throw up. Being driven to work makes me want to throw up. Bending over sometimes makes me want to throw up. So I am an attractive shade of light green a lot of the time.

Comments

Tooth extraction

[altrinc]

Ugh. Another ghastly episode with the fang-farrier. Sorry they made such a meal of it. I hope the nausea from the antibiotic has gone down. Love the description of car-wash Bear! Long may he wake you up so.

I had my first extraction for a decayed tooth last year. I wanted to see the tooth afterwards as I felt I needed to apologise for not looking after it properly, but they whisked it away in a suction tube to prevent me from inhaling or swallowing it. How can you feel guilty towards a part of your own body?

Re: Tooth extraction

[weofodthignen]

I hate my teef. I'd happily just have em all whipped out - but they make everything such a palaver here. I had thought of asking to see it - in its blue, jagged glory - but they didn't even say "Here it comes!" or "Got the sucker!" I did know someone who had hers kicking around in her study - it tended to roll off her desk onto the floor. That one had the roots still attached, I'd have kept it in, looked fine to me, just a bit yellow.