The Joys of Wisdom Teeth VI

I went back to the oral surgeon today. The office was crowded at 9am but I had no wait. The receptionist knew me and as soon as I took my coat off the nurse brought me in. I worried that I was the possible malpractice patient.

He asked how I was and I said no worse and maybe just a little bit better. I can open my mouth a little bit more than I could Wed. He agreed. Again there wasn't any swelling inside my mouth. Well actually there was just a little by my tongue on that side which happened right after dinner last night. He took another full mouth x-ray and it looked clean. No bone spurs or anything. He rinsed out the extraction site and there was a little more stuff there than he expected. Hard to say what it was, pus or just food stuffs. He tapped on the other teeth and they were fine (didn't hurt). So based on this, he was thinking of opening up the gum on the tongue side and looking for an infection site to clean out.

At this point I'm thinking how I could politely ask for a copy of the x-rays to get a second opinion. The surgeon seemed knowledgeable but he also seemed stumped. I wanted Dr. House. Well I think to his credit he brought in his associate in the practice for a consult. He looked at the x-ray and also thought it looked good. He examined me and came to similar conclusions, but suggested waiting a little bit before opening the tongue side.

I asked what the possibilities were and they said "We know you have an infection". But usually there's some swelling inside the mouth and someplace to drain. I don't have swelling inside my mouth and what I do have seems very localized in the lymph node. So they don't know where the infection site is. I asked what possible next steps would be and they said a CT scan to find the infection site. I said "so we wait to see if something comes up to avoid an expensive test but that's the fallback", and he said yes.

So I have an appointment on Friday for another look. My guess is I'll be in a similar position and then will get a CT scan. I assume at some other site and it will be a while to make an appointment and I probably can't do it over the weekend. Sigh. If anyone has any advice or comments I'd love to hear them.