After Armageddon.
Well, it's the second day since the extraction and I certainly haven't bounced back as I thought I might. I have been very tired and sleeping a lot. I take painkillers every four hours and they seem to keep my comfortable although this morning I woke up with the right side of my throat very sore, and under my right jaw very swollen and painful. That worried me a little, along with the unpleasant taste in my mouth. Then when I was actually applying some Benzocaine to my gums as they were so sore, I noticed that the gum at the back and behind the extraction was excruciatingly painful, even after Benzocaine had been applied. Could there be an infection developing? Was it just a reaction to a very difficult extraction?
I didn't have the answers, but the weekend is looming and that is not the time to 'wait and see' and then have to go into emergency help after hours. With that in mind I rang the dental unit today to ask their advice. After all, I have not had that many teeth out and never one so traumatically, so I really did not have a clue what it 'should' be like afterwards. They wanted me to run all the way into the city again to see them, but I asked if my local gp could see me instead. City = $10 petrol, $10parking and possible $29 emergency fee. Gp = $1 petrol, free parking and free consultation. They said my gp would be fine and I was still welcome to contact them if I wasn't happy with what my gp chose to do.
So tomorrow I see my doc in the morning and get her to look and decide if there is infection or not. The dental unit did say that the second and third days are the worst. Today is the second day. I don't mind if I have to tolerate a bit of pain and swelling for a while as long as there is no infection brewing. I really don't believe in letting infections in the head go untreated. I know it could be just the open wound in my mouth that is doing it, but at the moment my breath could stun an elephant at 20 paces.
I think too I am a little concerned if there is any crush damage on the gum. When our cat was mauled by a dog a few years ago the vet explained what crush damage does to the flesh, cutting off blood supply and causing the tissue to die. I do know that dentist was levering against my gum pretty damn hard the other day, so who knows? Perhaps I am just being a paranoid sook, but that's ok as I am allowed to be when I don't know the answers.
At least tonight tygrr went to the store and bought me some Listerine mouth wash, so my mouth feels semi-human again.
In the meantime, as the teeth on either side of the extraction have also been super sensitive since tuesday I have decided to stick to what we call a 'tonsilectomy diet' for a while. When we were kids growing up and every other kid you knew had there tonsils out it became well known that this was a good thing as one got to eat all the yummy foods - custards, jellies, icecream etc - anything soft, non-chewy and easy to swallow. Well I have modified it a bit, so there are scrambled eggs, mashed potato and gravy, yoghurt, Lite custard and Weetbix among the jellies (weight watchers of course), but it is still a diet reminiscent of childhood illnesses - and very practical with such a sore mouth!
Not much else is happening because of this. I have felt so tired and washed out I have spent a lot of time sleeping or just lying in bed reading, although the book gets too heavy to hold very quickly.
I do know that the writer is getting antsy to get back to work. Ideas bubble in my head but I just feel too awful to realy get them down on paper. Still I have to find a man to base one of the main male characters on, so I am spending a bit of time daydreaming over leading men in the movies at the moment. I find when I have a character that is going to be involved a lot in my stories they become so much better if I can base their physical description on someone I have seen. It doesn't have to be someone famous, but one tends to see them more often than unknowns.
Now though my brief energy burst is wearing off pretty fast, so tis time I crawled back into bed and sooked some more. The writer shall just have to wait.
I didn't have the answers, but the weekend is looming and that is not the time to 'wait and see' and then have to go into emergency help after hours. With that in mind I rang the dental unit today to ask their advice. After all, I have not had that many teeth out and never one so traumatically, so I really did not have a clue what it 'should' be like afterwards. They wanted me to run all the way into the city again to see them, but I asked if my local gp could see me instead. City = $10 petrol, $10parking and possible $29 emergency fee. Gp = $1 petrol, free parking and free consultation. They said my gp would be fine and I was still welcome to contact them if I wasn't happy with what my gp chose to do.
So tomorrow I see my doc in the morning and get her to look and decide if there is infection or not. The dental unit did say that the second and third days are the worst. Today is the second day. I don't mind if I have to tolerate a bit of pain and swelling for a while as long as there is no infection brewing. I really don't believe in letting infections in the head go untreated. I know it could be just the open wound in my mouth that is doing it, but at the moment my breath could stun an elephant at 20 paces.
I think too I am a little concerned if there is any crush damage on the gum. When our cat was mauled by a dog a few years ago the vet explained what crush damage does to the flesh, cutting off blood supply and causing the tissue to die. I do know that dentist was levering against my gum pretty damn hard the other day, so who knows? Perhaps I am just being a paranoid sook, but that's ok as I am allowed to be when I don't know the answers.
At least tonight tygrr went to the store and bought me some Listerine mouth wash, so my mouth feels semi-human again.
In the meantime, as the teeth on either side of the extraction have also been super sensitive since tuesday I have decided to stick to what we call a 'tonsilectomy diet' for a while. When we were kids growing up and every other kid you knew had there tonsils out it became well known that this was a good thing as one got to eat all the yummy foods - custards, jellies, icecream etc - anything soft, non-chewy and easy to swallow. Well I have modified it a bit, so there are scrambled eggs, mashed potato and gravy, yoghurt, Lite custard and Weetbix among the jellies (weight watchers of course), but it is still a diet reminiscent of childhood illnesses - and very practical with such a sore mouth!
Not much else is happening because of this. I have felt so tired and washed out I have spent a lot of time sleeping or just lying in bed reading, although the book gets too heavy to hold very quickly.
I do know that the writer is getting antsy to get back to work. Ideas bubble in my head but I just feel too awful to realy get them down on paper. Still I have to find a man to base one of the main male characters on, so I am spending a bit of time daydreaming over leading men in the movies at the moment. I find when I have a character that is going to be involved a lot in my stories they become so much better if I can base their physical description on someone I have seen. It doesn't have to be someone famous, but one tends to see them more often than unknowns.
Now though my brief energy burst is wearing off pretty fast, so tis time I crawled back into bed and sooked some more. The writer shall just have to wait.