The "D" Word

As stated in a previous blog, I have been suffering from not-so-very-nice toothaches as of late. I had attributed this aching to allergies issues. God bless sinus drainage, right? I had been crossing my fingers and waiting for the pain to subside after my allergies lessened. And waited. And waited. And waited. And... well, you get the point. The achiness of doom had yet to diminish after nearly a month and a half. I realized that.... it was time. Gulp.

The "D" word. Oh, how I hate it. I'd basically rather scrub a public toilet with a toothbrush than have to visit the dentist. I quite literally shiver when that dreaded noun is uttered. I loathe everything about it: the picks, the scraping, the drilling, the novocaine, the fluoride treatments. But especially the picks and the drilling. They make dreadful sounds. Ugh. One might as well scrape a fork across a chalkboard. Its that bad.

After last night left me clutching the right side of my face for an hour, I knew that the time had come to call the dreaded D word. While I was relatively certain that the pain was due to my sinuses, there was also a possibility that the massive filling in my one tooth had an absess and was pussing into my bloodstream or something. That would have been bad on many levels. Not to mention really disgusting. I hope none of you reading this were eating. If you were, you're welcome. I just assisted your latest dieting fad.

Early this morning, I phoned the office, explained the situation, and was able to schedule an appointment for this afternoon. This was almost an annoyance for two reasons: first, I had to take a few hours out of my work day, and second, I didn't have enough time to mentally prepare myself for the impending terror.

2 PM rolled around, as it does every afternoon, and I put my big girl panties on and stepped into the office. Shoving down the near panic and dismay I felt, I wondered if it may have been better to continue on with the pain and purchase a few bullets to bite rather than go through the agony of the dentist chair. Ugh.

I managed to not die, or even have a coronary, during the whole appointment. Lots of poking, prodding, tapping, and blowing of air showed no particular pain points. X-rays revealed that there was nothing absessing or pussing or exposed. So, all of my dreading and panic is apparently due to what I thought it was in the first place: obnoxious sinuses. Now I start course #11 of antibiotics in the last year. Maybe that will help the sinus headaches and clogged ears as well. As much as I am not a fan of the cold, I am looking forward to allergy season being over!