Torture, pt 3

Well, you knew there was going to be more to this drama. The mouth pain fading off with the sunset was never an option.

As of Saturday, my mouth was tender on the left side, but improving on a daily basis. I was all ready to blame my enflamed gums resultant from flossing and brushing malpractice by the owner (me) for my mouth hurting. Gradual improvements with diligent flossing and brushing supported the idea.

I ate breakfast on Saturday and went to one of those wholesale clubs to stock up on food. One of the things I like to pick up as a diabetic’s alternative to candy are nuts to snack on when I feel a little peckish. So I picked up a variety while I was shopping to have around.

I decided I had developed such a state of peckishness after putting everything away and sat down with a small container of peanuts that I had poured from the gigantic jar they come in and turned on the television to zone out before finding something else to do that needed being done.

Eating on the right side of my mouth to avoid the more tender spots on the left (and to be protective of that side), I managed to avoid pain until the smallest piece of pre-masticated peanut drifted over to the dark side. Sharp pain, but I didn’t bite down very hard so it faded immediately. Chew. Chew. Wait.

There was a piece of peanut that I thought didn’t feel very much like peanut at all. I took it out and examined it. It didn’t look like a peanut either.

“Great”, I thought. “One of those warehouse club foods with a foreign object and I’ll have to get someone with low-customer service awareness to give me a refund and look into the matter. Awesome.”

As I finished chewing, I noticed something though: my mouth suddenly and inexplicably no longer hurt on the left side. I took a peanut and gingerly experimented on one of the teeth giving me grief. Nothing.

Another tooth… same lack of pain. Nearly zero.

Did I pop a sealant? I have a few of those for preventative care.

I tested several foods that had given me problems over the past ten days. Almost no pain. I kept whatever it was, but was less concerned it was a foreign object than I had when I first encountered it.

Then… my tongue felt it. Sharp edges on one upper molar that never had sharp edges. I inspected as best I could with a hand mirror, my fingers and a flashlight. Yep. A ridge had formed on the tooth.

Fast forward to this morning. I am still largely pain-free, although my tongue protests loudly at encountering that rough edge whenever I eat. I have yet another emergency visit set up for later this morning in the hopes that they can give me at least a temporary solution in the form of crown or restoration, or smoothing.

But… at least the pain is gone and I can mostly chew my food like normal. Still, who’d have thunk this would come up just before I had a planned trip out of State and Country? Criminy.

UPDATE: Yeah, temp filling until I can get a crown. It wasn’t my imagination and they even let me view the mouthcam photos to show me the damage. Fun! But now my tongue is at least happy the tooth is smooth and I don’t have to worry about infection or it cracking worse while I am away unless I start trying to eat Corn Nuts or popcorn kernels. Hairline fracture on the horizontal of my tooth.

But no one appreciated my joke that I was working on my frequent flier miles when they noted it was the third time in a week that they had seen me 😐