Remember how I posted back in April about needing to get two crowns and a filling done? That was supposed to be the end of it, right? Sadly, these issues have turned into a long and painful saga.
I started the process of getting the crowns done, and had metal temporary ones put in while waiting for my porcelain ones to be made. The metal ones didn't feel good. My gums weren't healing, and the very back one seemed to be pushing into my cheek in an uncomfortable way. I mentioned my discomfort to my dentist the next week when I went to get the permanent ones put in and she didn't seem concerned, until she pulled off the temporaries. "That's something I haven't seen in a long time," she voiced. "It looks like you've been having an allergic reaction to the metal." She proceeded to fit one permanent crown on, but the other wasn't creating a good seal, so she sent it back to the lab and stuck that darned metal temporary back on the back tooth for another week.
After getting the updated permanent tooth back and glued to my skull I went in to have my filling done on the other side of my mouth. Time passes, the crown in the far back refuses to feel good, and I learned to chew all my food on the left side of my mouth - the side with the new filling. Until one day I was chewing eggplant and a shooting pain sliced up through my tooth. Something was wrong.
I went back for a 4 month check up at the beginning of September (the crowns are in with temporary glue to make sure I don't actually need root canals) and talked about the uncomfortable crown and pain I was having while chewing on the filling side - pain that by now has brought me to tears at least twice. I'm not really a sissy when it comes to pain, either. She filed down the crown a bit to adjust the bite, and looked at the tooth with the filling but couldn't see an issue. She wanted me to wait and see if there is any temperature sensitivity before planning the next step.
Even with the adjustment the crown still didn't feel good, and I still can't chew on the filling side. Then, near the end of September after eating lunch one Sunday it felt like there was a small piece of food stuck behind my troublesome crown. I reached back with a finger to push the food out, and with the slightest touch of my finger my crown fell off! The dentist is closed on Sundays, but she did respond almost immediately to a facebook message I sent her. She told me to try and stick it back in with Vaseline (which I don't have), and that she'll call me in the morning to schedule me an appointment. I left the tooth out because it just felt better that way (minus a little temperature sensitivity on the exposed tooth-stub), and got scheduled for an appointment that Tuesday morning (the 29th).
This time, finally, after the dentist took her time to fit, file, and re-fit the crown, it felt like it was in the right place. For good measure she took some x-rays of the tooth with the filling to see if she could spot a crack in the tooth or an abscess that would cause my pain. She couldn't see anything, but the filling is large enough that a crack could still exist out of sight. She tells me to start saving my money - it could lead to another crown (shudder!).
I went home and was living life normally for a couple of days, and was enjoying the ability to properly chew food on one side of my mouth. Then I noticed by Thursday my jaw and area under my cheekbone on my right side (crown side) were getting a little achy. I assumed it was just the trauma of having my crown put back in, so I took some ibuprofen, and moved on. But the pain started getting worse, and ibuprofen wasn't cutting it anymore. By Wednesday night I knew without a doubt this issue wasn't going away on its own, so I called my dentist again yesterday morning and explained my symptoms. Not convinced it's an abscess (there's no visible bump) but not ruling it out she called in a prescription for penicillin. I've been on the antibiotic for 24 hours now, switched my pain meds to naproxen, rotate through ice packs, and keep praying this does the trick. The pain was so bad last night I was in tears again - hopefully the antibiotic works, and soon.
Can I say I am SO ready to be done with the dental issues?
