Long time readers (if there any) will remember a lot of posts early last year about my dental issues. I ended up getting a few root canals and quite a few more crowns. Looking through transactions on Mint, I found ~$15k of payments to the dentist, and about $3,600 to the endodontist. This also does not include the $1,500 paid by Delta Dental. Anyway, the total was close to $20k for 2020; there was probably more in 2019.

Today was just a cleaning. They had placed me on a three month schedule, but I missed the February appointment due to the transplant surgery and subsequent anti-rejection medications. I finally got clearance a few weeks ago to see the dentist again. The appointment went both better and worse than I thought. Based on my recent experience, I expected a lot more commentary and plaque scraping. It turned out just okay, but the dentist says I need two crown replacements. It has been less than 18 months; I thought they last longer? They are both on my left side so maybe it is due to me chewing on that side only since I had two molars extracted on my right side. There is also another tooth that needs a crown. We knew about this one but did not get it fixed last year. Finally, there are one or two small cavities that he can fill.

If you look at the big picture, it is not as bad as a bypass heart surgery or major organ transplant, but it sucks nevertheless. The dental office is also not really close by so it takes an hour to drive roundtrip.

As opposed to the all day excursion last week. This time, it was just to remove the suture from the tooth extraction. I was feeling the thread with my tongue all week. It took me about 30 minutes to drive to the dentist office, and about 35 minutes back. I was actually in the chair for about 3 minutes. He said everything looked fine, and the socket should close up in a few weeks. There is a mesh covering the bone graft material/crystals in the socket still.

When I go to leave the dentist office, the center console of my car wouldn’t come on. This happens sometimes so I reset it and it took 5 minutes to come back. There was also a tire pressure warning light so I pulled out my portable air pump to fill up the tire. Then I noticed that both rear tires are completely bald. The driver side tire is actually showing some steel belts under the rubber. One bad thing about electric cars not needing service is that no one checked the tires (I know, I should have). The front tires seem fine so I have to get two (or four) new tires.

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Just now, the mesh covering the tooth socket came out. I was taking a work call and felt a weird object in my mouth. It’s less than 1 cm x 1 cm but it really stinks. I texted the dentist asking him what to do and he said it’s fine, just be careful not to eat or brush on that side for another week in case I knock out some of the bone graft crystals.

I have another large/deep cavity to take care of along with some smaller cavities. The dentist wisely schedule me for teeth cleaning every three months instead of six. I’ll pay more but probably well worth it for me.

So I feel much better today. The sharp pain is mostly gone. There is just a dull throbbing and slight irritation from the sutures. My jaw joint is sure on the right side of my mouth, probably from the force exerted to remove the tooth. Since I’m staying at my sister’s house, I brought my precious Percocet and some Tylenol, but I don’t think I’ll need it anymore.

That side of the mouth feels weird. Unfortunately, I have two molars removed from the bottom right in addition to the wisdom tooth so there’s not much bite left. I think I will have only one full pair of molars on the right to chew. Maybe I’ll need to get that implant after all.

Looking forward to next Thursday when the sutures come out.

Holy crap, that was difficult. After getting clearance from my cardiologist, I went into the dentist at 4:00 pm. My last extraction (yeah, more than one) was pretty quick so I thought this would be the same. Ha! I was there until after 5:30 pm.

I think this is the third tooth in from the back on the bottom right. Both the dentist and endodontist looked at the tooth and decided it was beyone saving, i.e., root canal and crown. First he hit me with a lot of anesthesia but since there was tooth decay and infection, the anesthesia is not as effective. He had to inject me over and over for me to withstand the pain (I could always feel pain). The tooth did come out in one piece, which was good. He showed me and there was a huge hole at the back of the tooth. Pretty ugly.

Afterwards, he put in some bone crystals in the socket for a bone graft in case I want an implant at the tooth site later. This was new to me since the other molar extraction just left an empty socket. He then put a mesh to cover then several sutures to close off the hole. I need to go back next week to remove the sutures. I think I would have needed to do this before any transplant surgery since the tooth was infected. Not good if they’re giving me lots of immunosuppressants.

I took two Tylenol (I sound like a broken record) pills already since the post-extraction pain is building as the anesthesia wears off. I don’t have any more Codeine but found some leftover Percocet from the chest surgery. I’m reserving that in case the pain becomes unbearable again.

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At first I thought I wanted to keep the tooth, but I have too much junk already. It could be a reminder for better oral hygiene but if all these painful dentist appointments can’t motivate me, one tooth won’t matter. And it was ugly.

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OMG! The pain is like a 9 on the pain scale. So my entire lower jaw is in pain but I can also feel the stabbing pain from the empty socket coming through. Then the lower tooth next to the socket is hurting, probably because the dentist leaned on it with the extraction tool. The molar on top is hurting as well, similar to before. Finally some random front tooth is hurting. There are like five intense areas of pain in my mouth, and the Tylenol didn’t seem to do anything. I tried to take a nap to sleep off the pain, but there is no way I can fall asleep. The pain is 10x worse than when the tooth was in. Of course, that was from a badly infected tooth that had to come out, but this pain now is worse than anything I experienced during heart surgery recovery. The Percocet has acetaminophen in it so I don’t want to overdose having just taken the Tylenol, but I may not have a choice soon.

I also didn’t eat much after dialysis and before the tooth extraction. I really haven’t eaten anything substantial since Tuesday lunch due to all the dental appointments yesterday, the sudden toothache, and the extraction today. I just weighed myself and I’m now at 84.3 kg or 186 pounds. I used to think that to weigh 180 was impossible since I was at 240 but here we are.

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I can’t stand this anymore. I’m going to take one of the Percocet pills. Hopefully the expiration date doesn’t affect the potency. As long as I lay off the Tylenol for 12 hours, I should be fine.

The label says Oxycodone-Acetaminophen 5-325. I guess it’s 5 mg of Oxycodone and 325 mg of Acetaminophen. Label also says generic for Percocet. Warnings include “Caution: Opioid. Risk of overdose and addiction.”

It’s been 5 minutes and there’s no reduction in pain. <sad face>

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Update: 9/11/2020 8:18 am

Still alive. I only ended up taking two of the Percocet pills last night and no more regular Tylenol. I did get woken up at 3:30 am for a bit but managed to sleep until about 8:00 am. That painkiller works great as a sleep aid. Good thing they’re hard to get from the pharmacy.

The pain is subsided somewhat. It’s just a dull throb now so I’m going to try and stick with the OTC Tylenol. Can’t be all drugged up any trying to work today.

And we’re not even done yet…

So I went today at 10:30 am to the crown guy. Since I was getting front upper teeth crowned, my dentist wanted the color to match the surrounding teeth. When the crown is in the back, they can be whatever color. However, if the front crowns are a blazing white, and the rest of your teeth are not, they look super fake. Anyway, the guy is like an artist. He uses an airbrush to add color, then he needs to bake the crowns to set the color. He also took forever to make sure the fit was good. I ended up being there for around three hours to get six crowns fitted and colored. Then it was off the the actual dentist. He placed all my crowns in by about 2:30 pm and wanted to do the tooth extraction. However, his office called my cardiologist for blood thinner clearance but they never called back. I placed a few phone calls too but my actual cardiologist was busy with patients and didn’t get to her message queue yet. I wanted for another hour in my car but the dentist ran out of free time. We rescheduled for tomorrow in case my cardiologist gets back to me tonight. She does use the portal message system and does answer emails late so maybe. I’ve taken two Tylenol pills already since the pain is fading in and out of the bad molar.

I left the house at 10:00 am and didn’t get back home until 4:30 pm. Six and a half hours and I didn’t even get to eat anything.

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Tooth is starting to hurt again. It’s coming as random sharp spike of pain. I’m afraid it’s a prelude of worst things to come. I’m hoping that I won’t be fighting a massive toothache tomorrow during dialysis. I also have to lead a work meeting at 11:00 am so I need to be able to talk.

Ouch…

The tooth started hurting as soon as I woke up this morning. After taking two regular Tylenol pills, the pain kind of subsided until I took a nap in the afternoon. As soon as I woke up, the pain returned. Worse, my mom called us to eat dinner. During dinner, I avoided using that side of my mouth but still felt shooting pain a few times. Otherwise, I can feel the tooth throb along with my heartbeat.

The pain got worse over dinner and after dinner. It became pretty unbearable but at least it was limited to the actual bad tooth on the bottom. I don’t know what was the deal with the top tooth yesterday. I just took another two Tylenol pills. Hopefully I can keep the pain at bay until I see the dentist Wednesday. I probably need to call his office tomorrow to let him know that the tooth is acting up prior to being extracted.

Also, I remember leaving the hospital back in November with a small spray can of numbing agent for teeth. I had cracked one of my left side molars eating hospital food (no joke) and they gave me the spray in case it started hurting before I could get to a dentist. Like an idiot, I actually went to the dentist the next day after being discharged. It’s all kind of foggy now but I remember barely able to walk with a walker, and sitting in the dentist’s clinic getting a temporary filling. Sigh…

A couple of teeth started to hurt on the drive home from work earlier. I had stopped by Panini Kabob Grill in Santa Ana to pick up dinner for myself but ended up eating only a few grains of rice due to the pain. As I wrote before, I think my teeth problems advanced so fast was partially due to my toxic blood while on peritoneal dialysis. Some of it was just sheer fatigue where I would stay in bed all day, and the rest is just general laziness when it comes to dental hygiene. I did at some point, got dental clearance for a transplant but things went downhill pretty fast.

Anyway, I spent a lot of time at the endodontist and dentist early this year for some root canals. One of the tooth that is hurting had a root canal and was crowned. This is the last molar on the top right of my mouth. It’s not the wisdom tooth since all of those were removed. There seems to be another extracted tooth there as well so maybe the third tooth in? Likewise, the bottom molar in the same position is hurting. This one I expected. They did not do a root canal on the bottom tooth since the endodontist said he likely could not save it. It is marked for extraction but my dentist wanted to crown everything else first. Well, I guess I lost the race. The tooth started hurting before we could extract it. I took my last two precious Tylenol with Codeine #3 tablets earlier. I don’t feel it helping that much so maybe it would be hurting a lot more without the drugs. I have an appointment with the dentist on Wednesday to put in some crowns. I don’t know if he was going to do the extraction or send me out somewhere. Hopefully the top tooth is hurting because the nerve is connected somehow, and not that it needs more work.

I had my second major dental appointment today. I mentioned the first appointment was very painful. Well, I just got home after a long day of appointments and my gums are hurting like crazy. I think it’s even more painful than when I was coughing non-stop after heart surgery. The pain is throbbing with each heartbeat and the whole left side of my face is swollen. Today’s appointment was to put in four permanent crowns and work on three more. I can’t believe I have seven new crowns on one side of my mouth. Just the dentist bill for the two appointments came to ~$5,600.

I was in the dentist chair for about 2.5 hours and had to run to an acupuncture appointment right after. As I was lying there on the acupuncture table, all I could think about was the intense pain in my mouth. I just took one Tylenol + Codeine pill; the bottle said I can take two but it also had an opioid warning label. It wasn’t even prescribed for a toothache but I need something strong to dull the pain. Right now it hurts so much that there’s no way I can fall asleep so I’m sitting here typing and hoping the pain will diminish a bit. I’m also hungry since I haven’t eaten all day but with one side of my mouth on fire and the other side with a fresh root canal, I don’t think I can eat anything without killing myself.

There is no response to my email to the vascular surgeon’s office.

I just came home from my dentist’s house. He helped me remove the temporary crowns he put in on Tuesday. The top one was in there pretty tightly so I probably would not be able to get it out with my fingers. My dentist said after surgery, I can try to put them back in myself. They’re pretty tight and should hold without dental cement.

It was a bit awkward sitting in his guest bathroom holding a flashlight so he could see into my mouth. I also said hi to his kids; I wonder what they’re thinking about the weird late night visitor.

Everything is so complicated when you have multiple health issues. My dentist put in some temporary crowns yesterday while permanent ones are being fabricated. I mentioned to him that I will be having surgery this Friday under general anesthesia. Usually the anesthesiologist doesn’t want anything loose in your mouth since it can be knocked off and become a chocking hazard. My dentist wanted me to check if anyone on the surgical team can remove them prior to surgery, or I can remove them myself with a hemostat. Sensing my hesitation about DIY dental work, he offered to take them out the night before if the surgical team won’t do it. I think it’s unlikely that the surgical team wants to be responsible for my temporary crowns. I sent an email to the vascular surgeon’s office to ask but I think I may have to make a late night visit to my dentist’s house after small group tomorrow.