Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Tooth Detective

For the first time in years and years, I have dental insurance! I'm going to get xrays and a checkup and all that good stuff early next month, which is awesome. And likely to cut down on the amount of wine I drink, because I mainly only drink when my wisdom teeth are turning my mouth into a hellhole and my neck and shoulders into painfully knotted rubber bands dipped in acid.

Hooray!

The only problem with this is that when I originally tried to have my wisdom teeth removed, I had a bit of trouble. I was under IV sedation (having never had so much as a cavity filled, the dentist thought I should probably be unconscious for the procedure) and had an allergic reaction to the sedative. Blood pressure, heart rate, respiration all dropped rapidly and I began to turn blue. They stopped the IV drip immediately and started trying to wake me, which eventually worked. Then I went home and vomited uncontrollably for 2 days. This was after having gotten just the very first bit of sedation, before they had a chance to begin the procedure at all. I never went back after that.

Now I deal with pain from those effing teeth pretty often. But I don't know what it was that I was allergic to; I was only 18 or so at the time, and was also unconscious and then very sick, so I didn't pay very good attention. My Mom was there with me, and she apparently had a letter explaining it all and then accidentally shredded said letter? And she doesn't remember at all either.

My current family medicine Doctor's best guess is propofol which puts me in good company with Michael Jackson, I guess. Only in the last couple of years did I start wondering about this and wanting to find out so I could get my teeth taken care of, but by then the records had been destroyed. I've called the place where it was done a few times to try to find out with no luck, but did so again today and the woman I spoke to said that apparently there is someone who can access their old computer records that will call me back tomorrow. I'd love to find out before I go to my new dentist.

This is like the most boring Nancy Drew story in the world, isn't it? I should make up some parts about how I lost teeth biting a crazed lunatic and Ned Nickerson saw it all happen which is why Nancy is on the case. And George is in school to be a nurse anesthetist and Bess has a hopeless crush on the dreamy Dr. Toothworth.

Yeah, I read a lot of Nancy Drew as a kid.

1 comment:

  1. Hahaha, I didn't read that much Nancy Drew but I so look forward to graduating from nursing school so I can see the dentist and orthodontist and get my teeth back on track with feeling and looking better. My insurance that I have sucks, and the work I need is a lot, I'm even going to get braces. Either way, take care and be careful with what they do to you.

    ReplyDelete