It is another lovely day, here in the wonderful Great Britain. The sun is out and shining beautifully over everything. I have cleaned the house – well, a part of it.
I had to go to the Dentist this morning to refill a filling. So my mouth is stuck in this weird place where you feel like it is a huge appendage stuck to the front of your face. You drink from a cup but one half of your lips feel as though they are not really there so you are worried you will drip your drink.
Sometimes you do!
You cannot eat as you may chew yourself into a bloody pulp. I hope it fades soon as I am off to an aunt and she cooks some of the best food!
So how did my tooth get this bad? And it is bad, thankfully it is still in my mouth but I am told it is hanging on by a thread and more work may need to be done if the filling gets loose again.
The Story of my teeth.
I used to have the most perfect teeth. I was proud of them and until I got pregnant, I never felt them. They were there and they did what they were supposed to. I had good strong African Teeth. We eat bone, you know! (Actually, I do not, but I come from a long line of bone eaters! 🙂 )
My mum used to warn me that I ate far too much chocolate and sweets but who listens to their mother? Certainly not me 😮 ! Ultimately, I decided that as I had gone through years and years of eating chocolate and sweets, I could carry right on doing what I do and my teeth should carry on being fine.
The problem was, my teeth had other ideas. They were tired of being used and abused and generally forgotten about. They started to hurt and started to hurt bad. At first, I tried to ignore them. It was just a twinge here and there and then it would pass so I pretended it was not happening. After all, my teeth were perfect (Bone-eating ancestors and all!)
And then one night, I could not sleep at all with the pain. I was pregnant as well so I could only have paracetamol. Me being me, the pharmacist, I did not even want to take that, just in case I harmed my baby – I should know better but I am a very, very bad medication taker! I only take something if I am in severe, ‘about to die’ pain. So I put up with it… ALL NIGHT! No sleep for me! (Preparation for the mothering years to come, I suppose 😉 )
Off to the lovely emergency dentist in the morning we go(because, as we all know, most horrid pain waits to occur at the most inconvenient time. Sometime over Saturday night usually so you cannot see your regular dentist!). I cannot have X-rays because I am pregnant and the pain seems to be emanating from a place other than where the dentist thinks is the problem. So she takes a chance and thankfully , she is right.
Burying my head
The pain fades. The pain is forgotten… and normal service resumes. Or so I think.
I carry on, doing what I do – eating the wrong things and expecting all to be well. I give birth, I go to the dentist, an X-ray is done and surprise, surprise – there is a multitude of problems all hiding under the surface. A course of treatment commences that results in a lot of fillings and the loss of a tooth.
OK, so lesson learnt, right?
Nope, three children later, four teeth out and then I am told that I have a particularly aggressive decay happening in one tooth. I need to come back for a filling as soon as possible to stop it in its tracks. What do I do? I avoid dentist and hope that it will all go away.
I bury my head in the sand.
Needless to say, it just carried on getting worse under the surface and my new dentist (yes, I even ran away!) confirmed that I had to do something as it was not getting any better. Finally, I have. And now, I have to keep a watch on it to see if I left it too late and if I will lose the tooth or not.
I hope not!
What of you? Do you try to pretend nothing is going on when actually things are going from bad to worse under the surface? How much pain is sufficient to make you change things? How long will you bury your head in the sand? Not as long as me, I hope!
Anyway, I am off to take some paracetamol. The anesthetic is fading…
