Tale of the Tooth

I hate going to the dentist.

It’s not that I don’t like the professionals who take care of my teeth. They are all wonderful, dedicated people. It’s just that there is no easy way for anyone with adult-sized fingers to maneuver around my teeth and gums without painfully stretching my mouth. The skin around my lips is simply too tight for me to open wide.

So, this past week, I was not looking forward to the visit to my periodontist for an implant—the second step of three to replace a molar lost this past spring to root resorption, a rare and very frustrating, painful complication of scleroderma.

This is the second time I’ve had to have a tooth replaced because the root resorbed. The last episode occurred maybe five years ago, and the tooth came out easily because most of the root had dissolved. But drilling to create room for the post was awful—I apparently have a dense jaw, a good thing. However, it took what felt like an hour to drill deeply and widely enough to accommodate the post. Even my periodontist remembered the ordeal.

I prepared for the appointment by shoving it out of my mind. Extracting the tooth back in the spring was no fun at all. It took more than an hour of drilling, breaking the molar into segments to get it out, long roots and all (the root had resorbed sideways into the nerve, rather than lengthwise).

Tuesday arrived, and I was even a few minutes early for my appointment. But construction work in my periodontist’s office building over the Labor Day weekend (so much for Labor Day) had left the practice with no running water when they arrived in the morning, and resolving that issue delayed all appointments. So I buried my nose in a fashion magazine as a distraction.

An hour later, it was finally my turn. Time to lie back, with my head lower than my feet, stare at the ceiling and await Novocaine. Always at this point in any dentist visit, when I know they have to stick needles in my gums, I have to focus on my breathing to manage my panic impulse.

Fortunately, they used a topical anaesthetic, first, which reminded me of Smith Brother’s cherry cough drops (used to love those as a kid, but no more). It dripped into the back of my throat, giving me the icky sensation of not quite being able to swallow, but it successfully numbed my gums enough to reduce the bee-sting pain of the Novocaine shots. Soon the slicing and drilling began.

This is where things got dicey. My periodontist is a real pro, and he understands the constraints of my mouth, but there is just no way to avoid pulling at the corners. Between the tools and the drill and the suction and probing fingers, I was stretched to the max, with no give. It hurt, even with Vasoline on my lips to ease the strain.

Mercifully, this time the drilling went more easily, and the whole procedure, from shots to stitches, took about an hour. I drove myself home, my mouth still very numb, walked in the door, got changed into comfortable clothes, swallowed a Vicodin, got an icepack for my jaw (even with Raynaud’s, this felt good, surprisingly), and lay down on the couch for the rest of the afternoon.

By the next day, I was able to manage the pain with just Tylenol and Ibuprofin. A week later, the swelling is virtually gone, most of my stitches have dissolved, and the gum is healing well. The tears at the corners of my mouth have healed, and I feel almost back to normal.

So, I’m grateful. The procedure is costing a small fortune, because our dental insurance barely approaches the total, but I’d rather have a molar than a gap in my jaw. I’m glad I can have an implant and a crown (that step will wait another three to four months for total healing) rather than dentures, which would be a nightmare with Sjogren’s dry mouth.

A few other teeth are resorbing, but I hope they will take their own sweet time. Meanwhile, much as I hate going to the dentist, I’m sure glad I went.

Photo Credit: purplemattfish via Compfight cc

Evelyn Herwitz blogs weekly about living fully with chronic disease, the inside of baseballs, turtles and frogs, J.S. Bach, the meaning of life and whatever else she happens to be thinking about at livingwithscleroderma.com.