When novacaine goes bad.

A few weeks ago I went to LF to get 2 small cavities filled.  I'm not a fan of the drill, but it's always been more of a nusance then anything else.  But this time I was having an anxiety attack.  My heart rate went up, my hands started shaking and that drill was driving me crazy!  I felt so silly about it that I didn't even say anything.  I hate the drill, but not this much, or so I thought.  I managed to survive the encounter and the cavities were filled.

Later on that night I was thinking and realized I had the same reaction last time, at the time I thought I was just a little emotional since I was starting this whole process with my teeth, but I certainly didn't feel that way this time.  I checked Google - apparently there has been a recent change in novacaine and the newer stuff now has epinephrine in it and I'm not the only one to have had a reaction like this.  The "new" novacaine lasts longer, which is good if you can tolerate the epinephrine.  If not then it seems you have the choice of valium or different novacaine.  I spoke to LF and she's going to give me different novacaine next time.

Sorry it took so long to post this, but nothing is really new with my teeth at the moment - they're all still there but not doing much at the moment.  I do see Dr. F this week and my surgery is in 3 and a half weeks.

A cleaning and good news

Last week I went for a dental cleaning. LF was excited to see me and my mouth. She's always so positive and happy - she thought everything looked good to her. But she did find 2 cavities starting so I'll be seeing her again next week.

Yesterday I went for an adjustment with Dr. F, he didn't do much other then change the chain on teeth on the lower right. The tooth that is sideways doesn't seem to be moving, but what do I know? But I did get good news. Dr. F will take the palate expander out before my surgery and it probably wont have to go back in - oh happy day!!!!

I got a tooth!

I've been late putting out this post, but on Monday I got a tooth to fill in my gap, YEA!

I was in the chair for about an hour, but it was worth it. The way the tooth is attached is that it is on the wire for the braces. As such, Dr. F put in a really think wire - think steel rod. Then Dr. F used some thin wire to tie it in too. I have to say it seems really sturdy in there. But the girl had a lot of trouble putting the wire in, it was a miscommunication between Dr. F and her - she was trying to feed the wire to my back teeth, but the wire only had to go to the tooth one in from the back. Also of note, Dr. F made the tooth a touch shorter then the ones next to it, so that it wouldn't be taking any pressure from biting on it.

I was in quite a bit of pain when Dr. F was putting the tooth on the wire. It's next to my middle tooth that hurts, so a new thick wire combined with all that movement from tying on the tooth, it was bad. It was the kind of pain that your eye want to cry, the pain doesn't make you cry, but it's so close to the tear ducts that you can't control it. I didn't actually cry, but I felt close to it. But in the next chair was a young girl who I think was crying and in quite a bit of pain. I must admit that I figured me crying wouldn't help her and I had to be tough and that gave me a little extra incentive to keep the tears in my eyes.

But I have to say, the tooth looks great! The picture was a self portrait with my iphone so it's not the best, but I think it gets the point across. I'm a smily happy go lucky kind of person, I now find myself, when I'm smiling, to be totally conscious of the fact that I now have a teeth (and hence not flashing my toothless smile) and it feels much better, I'm less shy about it. It's a good thing.

No new tooth, but I got a wire

Yesterday I went to Dr. F, I had hoped to get a new tooth, but ended up with a new wire instead. Although Dr. F did pick a color for the tooth that will be made to fill in my gap, hopefully he can add that when I return in 4 weeks. I did warn him that if I didn't get the tooth my mother was going to be calling him, she is quite eager for my tooth thinking that it will improve my speech. I do not believe it will have any meaningful impact on my speech.

But he did do a couple things during this visit.

He added a rubbery chain to the tooth on my lower right that is sideways, it would seem he's finally trying to rotate that tooth.

He also added a wire to my top row of teeth, while doing that the cap on one of my teeth fell off and had to be recemented. But my teeth really hurt today, I'm taking some good drugs and they still hurt. Also, it appears this morning that the wire has already moved to the left. I'll have to try to go tomorrow to take care of that.

Another milestone

On Wednesday night when I was brushing my teeth for bed I tugged a bit on my last and final stitch that was still in my mouth and it hurt, a lot.

On Thursday in the morning it hurt so much that I had someone from work take a look at it, I was actually on the verge of tears at one point because it hurt so much.

Thursday afternoon before dinner I noticed it finally fell out!!!!! Yea! It only took 6 weeks and 2 days, but who's counting?

So what's the deal with the bone graft?

I went to Dr. S today primarily to discuss when I would have my bone graft surgery. He said that Dr. F was being very conservative and I had to wait 4 months since the date of my last surgery. February 23 + 4 months = July (I'm guessing that Dr. S is going on vacation in early July so no late June or early July). I scheduled for July 27, but nothing is that easy since that is cutting it close to some vacations I have planned. I'll get back to that in a minute...

I asked Dr. S what the recovery was like after the bone graft - he said for 2 weeks I'll be on really soft food, ugh, I'm sick of soft food already! He said he was going to take the bone from my tibia (shin just below my knee) and that I would be a little sore 7-10 days and wont be jogging for a little while. But he said that if he had to take from my hip then the recover is a lot slower, possibly a couple months to get fully back up and running. He seemed to play that down, but the fact that he mentioned it indicates that it's a possibility. I also looked online, though it's hard to tell what type of bone grafts people are reporting about. Sounds like I'll be fairly sore for at least 2 weeks and the roof of my mouth will be easily irritated and tender for 2 weeks. And I saw that there might be an issue with flying (the whole pressurized cabin thing.)

After talking to Mom, who seemed a little concerned about the time frame and confused as to why I couldn't do it earlier I decided to call Dr. S's office. He said 2-3 weeks to fly, so I'm good, but I'm on the border with that time frame and that stressed me a bit. I asked if there was any possibility of getting the surgery the week before and was told that they are waiting for more surgical space and she'll see next week if they get more room. If they do she'll call me and give me a spot the week before. I would feel much more comfortable with that. While the trip to Las Vegas with my family is pretty relaxing I feel like 3 weeks will be cutting it close, 4 weeks I feel MUCH better with.

The other thing I asked about was my front tooth that I've been having trouble with - it's been sore for a couple years now and finally had a root canal in the fall. It's very close to the cleft but Dr. S thinks there is enough bone. However, he wont know for sure until he cuts open my mouth. Ackk!

I also have a vacation that I'm planning for mid September with Contiki. I think I'm fine with mid to late July and the recovery. Unless, they take the bone from my hip, my solution is to carefully research the reasons I can cancel my tour with travel insurance companies.

Building confidence

Since I've been back to work I have been feeling much better about my poor speech. Maybe my speech has gotten a little better, but I doubt much. Last week was a little rough being my first days back and then taking a training class - the whole being around strangers in a large group thing. Then over the weekend I had to speak with the executive staff at work and that went well (or at least I didn't hear anything bad.) Then this week I was away for training. I went to Washington DC, and other then a down moment when I first got to DC, I did well. And my down moment was probably more related to my being in a strange place and trying to find food with little success. But the first day in class I told the class that I had had surgery and that if they couldn't understand me to just ask me to repeat myself. I was a little quieter then I might normally be (possibly a good thing), but when I only had a few problems with I did speak and everyone was very nice and respectful. I'm running out of new and intimidating situations to be stressed about.