I haven't given this blog much love recently. Well, today's topic seemed to fit on my health and wellness blog just right.
So....I did a thing. Before I fully disclose though, I need to give you a bit of a back story.
I was born in the 1960's and in my opinion.....dental care in my part of the country between the late 1950's and the early 1980's was little better than that in current England. Now I could be wrong, but my experiences with the dental profession have not always been anything to write home about.
As a kid, I was sick a lot with asthma which usually went into bronchitis and often times pneumonia. I was pumped full of medication from about the age of two, up until my late teens. These medications were not great for my teeth as some leached calcium and others just literally destroyed them with cavities regardless of the three times a day I brushed or the avoidance of sweets. To top it all off, the cavities I seemed to have developed every six months were filled with big silver fillings that stuck out like a sore thumb and I learned later in life, would cause the tooth to eventually break around the filling.
As I grew into an adult, my teeth became less and less a reason to smile. Now, I am not blaming it all on dentistry or meds, because every time I was pregnant, one of my favorite cravings was ice. No...not the crushed stuff, but actual cubes which I could chomp on. Four pregnancies later and my teeth had tiny fractures developing all through them. Apparently what vintage dentistry and pharmaceuticals didn't kill in my teeth, my ice chomping finished off.
In the last few years, my teeth have become a nightmare. I have lost teeth and done the whole partial thing and spent literally thousands of dollars trying to keep what I had in tact. Recently though, my partial (which is a story all it's own) started breaking off. My mouth was in constant pain and I was having roots of my teeth growing almost into my sinuses. It has been miserable to say the least.
Living on a very limited income, my needs usually come a very distant last, but when you are in constant pain and being told that the constant infections your teeth are causing can cause life threatening outcomes, I had to pull myself up the priority line. After calling around, I found that even with my dental insurance, the work I was needing was going to cost anywhere between $3000 and $5000 and this simply was not even a possibility. Of course though, neither was dying because I left my tooth infection unattended. Finally, one of the dentist offices I talked to gave me the name of a dental facility that was for low income and worked on a sliding fee, so I made an appointment.
Now, this dentist I saw was awesome. She was a young woman not too many years out of dental school with a great seat side manner who seemed very knowledgeable with a gentle touch. After much consultation, it was brought to my attention that even on a sliding scale, filling in my spaces and fixing my partial was going to be far more than I could afford. It was also going to be a situation that even if fixed, it would not keep the rest of my teeth from needing further work and attention and costing me more. The bottom line....the most cost effective thing to do for my teeth was to simply pull them all and get dentures. It about made me cry but realistically and financially this was what it came down to. Neither the dentist nor I were 100% happy with this idea, because she said my gums were still in okay shape and my bone was great and as far as I was concerned, I wasn't ready to turn into my grandmother who was constantly hunting her teeth and scaring small children while she was looking. Okay....me! I was the small child she scared.
There was also the fact that even though dentures were the most cost effective, long term way to go, even on a sliding scale, it was going to be pricey. Luckily the offset would be that I would not be eating for awhile, so I could save some money there. Right?
So yeah.....that thing I did.....I decided to get dentures.
When I make a decision such as this, I have learned that the longer I think about it, the less apt I am to carry through and since this was a long term health affecting situation, I didn't really have the luxury of time to mull it over. I did do a little research and talked to my dentist in depth. She said that they would start with my top teeth since my bottom ones were still okay for now. They would pull all of the teeth and then give them six weeks to heal and then fit me with dentures and it would be another four to six weeks before I got them. I talked to others who had done this and a few suggested I be fit with a healing plate as soon as my teeth were pulled, as this would keep my gums from shrinking and be easier on me in the long run. It sounded good to me. I talked this over with my dentist and she said they didn't do the healing plates for a multitude of reasons but I think the biggest reason was cost. She did give me the name of other dentists I could go to if I wanted a healing plate. I called and the whole procedure would cost two to three times what I was already paying and the healing plate alone would be an extra $800-$1500. So no healing plate for this gal.
Thursday January 30th was the day. I went in, sat down and prepared to lose all my upper teeth, my smile, my ability to say words without a lisp and perhaps some dignity in the process.
The procedure began with 14 deadening shots. Nine were on the outside and five were behind the teeth on the upper palette. May I just say, I have not had much in life physically that hurt worse than those last five. I don't usually cry at pain, but those suckers almost made me. Once I was good and deadened, the extractions began. There was no pain, but there was a lot of tugging, pulling, pressure and the horrid smell of burning enamel and cauterized flesh. The process took about 90 minutes and as I walked out with a prescription for 10 tramadol and a mouthful of gauze, it was a given that talking would be out of the question for the next 24 hours.
I did okay the first few days and even realized that I could care less if people saw me without upper teeth or not. Who knew? I am not nearly as vain as I thought I might be. The real issue around other people for me though, has been my ability to speak. I can't speak well and therefore, I try hard not to speak at all.
By the end of the first week, things were beginning to change and I started having more and more pain and bending over or cold air hitting my gums was excruciating. The roof of my mouth had started swelling and I was developing sore spots everywhere I had been stuck with the needle on my palette. They then began to start breaking open. I called the dentist and was started on antibiotics. The pain did not leave and I was not sleeping and by around 3 p.m. every day, my mouth would be throbbing. I was fast becoming a royal bitch and no one....including myself wanted to be around me. My pain meds were long gone and I was surviving on ibuprofen and tylenol. Four days later, the infection was obviously still a thing and the pain was worse so I ended up in the ER. I had absesses where the five needle marks were. They ended up giving me a second antibiotic and said the infection was causing the pain. Lose the infection and the pain will be better. Sigh......
Today, I think it is beginning to be better. I can tell that the gums are starting to heal and although I still feel pain in my face and jaw, the swelling in the top of my mouth seems to be better. Perhaps we are now moving in the right direction.
If there is an upside to all of this, it might be that this is the most effective diet I have ever been on. I can't eat and even if I could, I likely wouldn't because the infection makes everything taste awful. I am surviving on water, the occasional smoothy and broth. I am sure as the pain subsides, other soft foods will be okay and taste better, but for now.....the I Have No Teeth and an Infection Diet are working wonders for my thighs.
In about a month, I will go back into the dentist and they will fit me for my dentures. It will be another chunk of sliding scale change up front and then I will get my dentures in another four to six weeks. I am told that the fun will not be over just then though. There will be trial and error once I get my new dentures as to the fit and my ability to learn to hold them in place, so actual eating may still be awhile off.
The dentist said after my dentures are where and how they need to fit, we may then have to talk about doing the bottom teeth. Wow! I just don't know. Perhaps though, if I end up being able to smile and talk again....not to mention eat, I may very well have a bottom set of dentures in my future. For now though.....we'll just wait and see.
So yeah.....I did a thing. I will keep you updated!
