Seven Down---25 To Go

Many adults no longer have their "wisdom teeth" because, often when these third molars begin to grow in their late teens and early twenties, there isn't room in the person's mouth for them to fit. Or many times, in my case for instance, they were growing in sideways and would not have erupted crown-up, but would have grown into the other teeth, crowding them together. So, I had to have all four of my wisdom teeth extracted. The uppers came right out. But the lower ones were quite an ordeal to remove. Most people know that an adult has 32 teeth, and in the case of those who had their third molars extracted, they spend their life with 28.

I'm now down to 25. Yes, I went back to my dentist this afternoon because all weekend #20 was really aggravating me. The extraction site, after a week of healing, was feeling rather good. But even tapping on the tooth with my fingernail caused sharp pain. So, I determined that I had to go back. He reviewed the advice from the endodontist and agreed: something was definitely wrong with that dopey tooth. The only option left was extraction. We both sighed.

Actually we laughed with great ghoulish gusto. None of us--the dentist, the assistant, nor I--wanted a re-run of the previous procedure! That took two hours of torture--they worked so hard. So he gave me the injections, they made little jokes about it, I laughed despite the hands in my mouth. But! 40 minutes later, success! He lifted the entire tooth right out of my jaw without having to resort to drilling and chipping and grinding. Awesome!

And there it was: an obvious crack the entire vertical length of the root, starting right at the gum line, all the way to the base. [FYI: root length was 3/4 inch] So, all that gunky stuff in my mouth has been seeping down that crack, pooling up in the root cavity. I was finally feeling the effects of the inflammation now that I had no other teeth on that side to take the force of a bite.

Three teeth are gone from the lower left side of my mouth. When the bone and gums heal we will put in some implants and make some lovely crowns to cover it all up and give me a chewing surface again.

When I told my students that I was leaving this afternoon for the dentist and I'd probably have stitches tomorrow, they said, "You always have stitches!" Um...yes, I have had a rather crazy few weeks between my foot and my mouth. I'm looking forward to just healing right now. After all, Food Season is here--I want to be able to eat.