Tard. Had to run all night, from the minute that I got to work. I did have time to keep taking my pills, though. But not in a timely manner.
I did take an x-ray of my mouth, though... and it didn't show an abcess. Not that I could see, anyway. I'm not really familiar with looking at teeth... more of a bone and organ man, I am.
Of course, it wouldn't have to be much of an abscess to hurt like hell. On the other hand, it could be just the sinuses acting up... my teeth actually grow right up through the bottom of the maxillary sinuses, so that the root of the tooth is only a coupla millimeters from the sinus cavity.
Hopefully, the dentist will be able to figger this out before he does anything major. I sure can't figger it out myself.
The other thing is... I've been on antibiotics for the last week, which should have taken care of any sinus infection.
And yet another thing, which I mentioned yesterday or the day before... is that ice water doesn't alleviate the pain, but rather causes more pain. If this were an abscess, it should reduce the pain.
One more point: ibuprofen by itself shouldn't cure it so readily. The pain from previous abscesses has proved intractable to all forms of medications.
So... I'll just hang around until 06:30, and then go see the dentist. More when I know what I'm talking about.
I just found out that the longivity awards ceremony is *this* Saturday... I had thought that it was in May, until the VP called and set me straight. This means that I need to find someone to work for me Saturday night, or at least the first part of it. It starts at 18:00, and I don't need to go in until 21:00, so I can still go if I can't find anyone, I guess...
08:25...
It was the tooth, all right, and the dentist said that it was because of the antibiotics that it was acting so funny, like not really being a real toothache. The antibiotic kept the infection down, but couldn't kill it... not specific to that particular type of bug.
They took a real dental x-ray, and there was a suggestion (not very clear-cut) of an abscess there.
And, for the first time, the root canal really, really hurt. The others that I've had didn't really... I was mostly in a great deal of pain when I had them done, and it was a relief from the pain. Starting off without much pain, though, is a different story.
This next part is really gross, you might want to skip it if you're rather queasy...
During the procedure, he was filing the root canal (this is the part that really hurts!) and he broke through the pus pocket... I got a whiff of the worst smell that I've ever smelt outside of an autopsy room. I asked the dentist if that was normal and he said that it was, and it was one way that he knew that he'd got to the "root" of the problem and, in this case, confirmed the diagnosis. (Which means that he wasn't all that sure about it, huh?)
Normally the patient can't smell it because of the suction apparatus... which is really nice. I wish that I wouldn't've.
The tooth that was bad was one that a bridge was attached to, and I was afraid that he'd have to remove the bridge, but he just drilled through it and he'll fill it back in on my next appointment in two weeks. In the meantime, I've got a temp filling there that will allow the pus pocket to drain.
And he gave me a script for some antibiotic that is specific for this bacterial type. I'll start taking that tomorrow morning, when I run out of the other.
I will be using a lot of mouthwash in the next two weeks.
I just paged my supervisor and she called back immediately. She doesn't think that it will be a problem getting someone to cover for me Saturday night... kinda surprised me that she was so positive about it. Maybe she remembers all of the favors that I've done for her...
A rare talent in a supervisor.
Well, I just loaded up on the ibuprofen (I looked up the spelling finally... been misspelling it forever...) as suggested, since my mouth is starting to regain some feeling. That's just another way of saying that it's starting to hurt.
Here's the x-ray that I took last night... the arrow is at the floor of the maxillary sinus.
Nasty.
