Okay, don't worry, I'm not having another brain surgery! Hallelujah!! One craniotomy is enough for me, thanks. But I am having some stinking oral surgery. I'm not pumped. Here's the deal.
I have a baby tooth. Yup! A baby tooth. There was never an adult tooth underneath it (these are technical terms I'm using), so it was never evicted from my mouth. Well, nearly 31 years later, my little baby is getting loose and needs to be replaced. And I thought maybe we'd be lifelong friends! What a jerk for wanting to ditch me.
Say hello to my little friend!!
Welp, I had a consultation with a periodontist (Dr. B) at the request of my dentist. I figured I could wait until my little baby fell out, then go and get an implant. Welllll... Apparently it's likely that it will become infected before then and I could lose jaw bone and density (since there's no root there to encourage the bone to stay put). So if I wait, the surgery to fix it could be more extreme and may involve cadaver bone being grafted to my jawbone. Yup. Groooooss.
I've always been the type to be proactive, even if it sucks, to keep a problem at bay while I still can. So I'm going in for oral surgery on Thursday, September 20th. They'll remove my baby tooth and drill a titanium rod into my jawbone. It'll go nicely with the titanium screws in my skull! I won't be all the way knocked out (which actually makes me nervous... I kind of wish I was!) and the whole thing should last about an hour. I'm taking that day and the day after off from work, and hopefully the swelling and pain will have subsided enough for me to go to work on the Monday after. I never had wisdom teeth to remove, so I'm not sure what to expect. But feel free to bring by milkshakes!! :)
I've always been the type to be proactive, even if it sucks, to keep a problem at bay while I still can. So I'm going in for oral surgery on Thursday, September 20th. They'll remove my baby tooth and drill a titanium rod into my jawbone. It'll go nicely with the titanium screws in my skull! I won't be all the way knocked out (which actually makes me nervous... I kind of wish I was!) and the whole thing should last about an hour. I'm taking that day and the day after off from work, and hopefully the swelling and pain will have subsided enough for me to go to work on the Monday after. I never had wisdom teeth to remove, so I'm not sure what to expect. But feel free to bring by milkshakes!! :)
Here's the kicker though. I won't get a new tooth for 3-4 months after the surgery! So I'll look like a pirate! The rod needs to heal into my jawbone enough before they screw a new faux tooth in (I prefer that over "fake tooth" since things that are faux are waaay more sophisticated).
So yeah, I'm nervous, and I almost think it's going to hurt more than my craniotomy did (but without the brain healing issues, which is a bonus for this surgery). Surgeries suck. But if I can kick ass at brain surgery, oral surgery should be a piece of cake! (Knock on wood...)
Ok, I'm totally freaked out now because I have a baby tooth too... my dentist has just been keeping an eye on it. Dear God!
ReplyDeleteI didn't mean to freak you out!! Mine's gotten looser in the last year or so, so my dentist wanted me to have a consultation. I was just enjoying my little tooth until the periodontist told me all the reasons not to wait for it to fall out. So I was freaked out when I learned about it but am feeling more okay with it now. We'll get through this together!! And I think the tooth fairy better give us some kickass gifts for these teeth! :)
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