Thursday, January 11, 2007

The Joys of Wisdom Teeth X

So I've had some discomfort over the last couple of weeks. It's always varied from like a dull pain either in the bottom (where the tooth was removed) or the top above it. Sometimes it's felt like pizza burn, other times like when I had my braces tightened as teenager, other times it's just been sore after chewing. The socket is healing and closing up but I decided to go back to the oral surgeon to have him take a look. HIs conclusion, the bone around the socket is pretty thick and as the gums grow over it it's causing irritation. There are two alternatives. Wait for it to heal naturally, his expectation was about 2 months, or help it along by opening up the gum and using a bone file to shave off the bone. That procedure is easy but has a 10 day recovery for the gum to heal. I've heard that before. The risk of leaving it is if the bone pokes through it's a pain to clean everything up, about 3 months of recovery there.

Anyway, tomorrow I'm having the cavity filled that started all this. After that I'll figure out how to schedule 10 days of recovery.

1 comment:

The Dad said...

You know that heebeegeebee feeling that some people get when they hear a dentists drill? I get that when I read things like "opening up the gum and using a bone file to shave off the bone."