For the first time ever I have toothache. More like a case of being electrocuted when I sank my teeth into a bread roll on Sunday. My dentist has been brilliant and yet I face a dastardly dental dilemma.
Seems I am now paying the price for all of those Mars Bars I would scoff without a care when I was in my twenties and thirties. Nothing ever seemed to go wrong with my body and I was even an occasional smoker in those days. I would never put on any weight and I was a steady 10 stone. I never had any problems with my teeth or anything at all.
Nowadays things seem to be catching up with me. Last week I had a sore gum by the tooth in front of a wisdom tooth. It got progressively worse and so I made an appointment to see the dentist PDQ. It was actually a different dentist and along with others in the practice, she had dazzlingly perfect teeth.
I explained the problem and before long the whir of the chair had me reclining and the familiar bright light illuminating my mouth. She felt around on the outsides of my jaw, there was nothing untoward. Next looking inside my mouth at said tooth and she couldn’t see anything wrong. Next was some liquid being sprayed onto a swab to see if I was sensitive to the cold; all okay. She felt around with her finger and tapped the teeth along that row with the handle of her probe; nothing loose. So next she did an x-ray which didn’t reveal anything either.
She suspects I have an infection caused by food getting caught between the teeth – you can see the obvious food traps. Therefore I have a course of antibiotics.
It was like being electrocuted!
Then Sunday, while I was cycling around the Cotswolds with my friend Wallie, I bit into a bread roll and the sudden jolt of pain was horrendous, never had anything like this before. It was like being electrocuted! I yelped and it made Wallie jump, he was suddenly quite concerned for me.
I saw my own dentist yesterday as things weren’t improving. She had a look around and discussed a few courses of action…..
- Root canal treatment of the tooth marked x. This has already been filled extensively. She advises going to another sister practice where they use a new microscope method and I can expect to pay up to £800. I queried the NHS options which could be a possibility but not at that practice, however it is okay to mix the two (NHS and private) these days.
- My wisdom tooth (to the right in the photo) is removed to make it easier to care for the second x tooth.
- Quit private practice completely and completely be an NHS patient. Even if I do this, you can apparently top up the NHS treatment by paying for nice white fillings and so on. This would be a shame as I feel I get really well cared for in the private practice; we have a good dialogue and I feel in good hands there.
Decisions, decisions…. right now I’m just concentrating on the antibiotics and painkillers.