Dental 2

Well, it's been a week since the tooth was extracted.  All in all, it has gone rather well.    The dentist said I was in for a miserable 48 hours, a week of annoyance, would be a left-side chewer the rest of my life, and would feel a "Grand Canyon" for a long time where the tooth was.  And that I could expect my outer cheek to be bruised and sensitive.

He recommended ice on my cheek, Tylenol 3 for the pain, and soft food for a month.  Considering the way he had to drill and break the tooth (a horrible sound), I expected that would be true.

The truth is that I seem to have gotten off easy.  I took a Tylenol 3 pill as the novocaine was wearing off, but I didn't really need it.  I never bothered to take another.  I never bothered with the ice.  I had no bruised or sensitive cheek.

The cut gum did take a couple days to stop seeping some blood.  The seemingly-over-abundance of gauze pads they gave me to fold and keep over the extraction point were actually barely enough.  He admitted that he had to do more cutting than he expected, so that makes sense.

The gap does feel huge.  My tongue says it is an inch wide, but it is really only about 1/4".  It was the most forward pre-molar and those are not very large.  

The gap may even become smaller over time.  A dentist from a few decades ago wanted to remove a couple teeth just so the remaining ones could spread out.  I have a small jaw and it forced some teeth slightly crooked.  Apparently, teeth can actually move slightly, given some space.  That seems a bit odd (since they are in bone), but I had read about that a couple of times elsewhere.  Well, bone is actually living tissue, so I suppose it's possible.  I really hope that is correct, because my lower right incisor is a bit out of place and if the new empty spot allows it to straighten some, that would be good.

The dissolving stitches did indeed dissolve.  Monday (4 days to the minute after the extraction LOL) I felt a slight stringy sensation sort of like a celery string between 2 teeth.  I was careful about it.  But a 1/4 inch piece of "something" came loose onto my tongue and it was a thread.  Touching the spot carefully, they were all loose and I removed them.

So it could have been a lot worse.  I remember co-workers talking about how horrible their extraction was.  Pain for days in spite of medications, etc.   

I'm probably not doomed to left-side chewing forever.  After the 2 lower right back molars (wisdom tooth and the one next to it) were removed 20 years ago, it eventually didn't bother me to chew in that area after a month.  I hope this new gap eventually toughens up like those did.

If not, well, getting older sucks and things start to go wrong.  You adjust as best you can.  My right knee is not great sometimes, my lower back hurts sometimes, I get leg muscle cramps laying in bed and rib muscle cramps when I twist around reaching for things behind me.  I get finger-clenches if I grip tools too long doing yardwork (it occurs a few hours later while doing knife-work preparing dinner).  I really should remember to wear my padded garden gloves routinely.

Regarding that, I have a good supply of aspirin-infused ointment, lidocaine gel, and ibuprofen tablets.  But that is not about the dental work, so I will let that go for now.

I'm just glad the tooth extraction (bad as it was in the dentist's chair) went well afterwards.

Dental Woes

Well, I've gone and lost another tooth!  I lost 2 teeth about 15-20 years ago due to a cherry pit, and it has happened again...

The 2 teeth years ago were because I was cutting a cantelope into cubes while eating cherries and I forgot what I was eating.  Thinking "cantelope", I just bit down.  Crushed a molar.  PAIN!  I could only get an appointment with my then-dentist 3 days later, so I had fun sucking soup through a straw for 3 days.

The dentist said it couldn't be saved and had to come out.  And during the extraction, he found the roots were entangled with the wisdom tooth, so it had to come out to.  Fortunately, the extractions themselves didn't hurt.  But the pulling was brutal.  They were upper teeth, so he had to pull down.  

I could barely hold my head up to counter the down-pull.  Now I understand the phrase "like pulling teeth"!  My recollection is that there were no healing problems after, and it seems to me that I chewed normally after a few days.

So Wed 6-29, I was eating cherries.  Given my previous experience, I am careful.  But I still managed a glancing scrape with a pit.  I froze in place, expecting pain.  None.  Two days later, I was eating chocolate chip ice cream and suddenly felt a jolt.  I guess those frozen chips are HARD!

It was a tooth with a filling.  I could tell something was slightly loose, but nothing actually came out.  It wasn't temperature-sensitive but it was pressure-sensitive.  Naturally, that was Friday evening before a 3 day holiday weekend.  My current dentist's office was closed until Tuesday July 5.  There is an emergency number, but I wasn't actually in any pain (so long as I didn't chew on it).

I overslept a bit Tuesday, but called the dentist as soon as I got up.  Oh, cruelty of oversleeping!  Had I called an hour earlier, they could have gotten me in that day.  As it was, they were fully booked until July 11.  But they said they would call if there was a cancellation.

There was.  I got in Thurs 7-7.  And it was for my preference of the 3 dentists there.  I say that because the other 2 are "you are just a jaw to me; sit there and shut up".  The other talks, explains, encourages patience, shows the x-rays on a monitor, etc.

I hate the x-rays!  I have a small jaw (and therefore crowded teeth) and the film insert cuts my gum (like I said, small jaw).  But when the dentist came in, he complimented his assistant (and me) for the very clear x-rays.  

That's where things went downhill.  He could tell if the tooth was chipped on one side or split down to the root.  He called a partner in to look at it and he couldn't decide either.

If a chip on the side, the tooth could be saved with a crown or root canal drilling.  If not, it had to be removed.  He doesn't do root canals because there are several specialist here who he says are more expert at it (he's honest).

So my choice was to go to a specialist (maybe waiting a week or 2) or having him extract it then and there.  It is a forward pre-molar.  He said extraction would affect my chewing for the rest of my life, so he recommended seeing a specialist and left my for a few minutes to decide.  

Talk about bad choices!  I initially decided to visit the specialists, but as I sat there, I lost confidence that the tooth could be saved.  And so I expected that, in 2 weeks of possible specialist drilling and pain and temporary fillings, I would be back in the same chair for an extraction anyway.

I opted to have it pulled.

Now, you have to understand that the previous 2 extracted teeth were removed rather easily.  Lots of pulling, but they came out rather easily.  And the dentist said a premolar was easier and there were no root entanglements.

So we went about the process of novacaine shots and waiting for it to take effect.  I should mention that I am a bit resistant to most medications.  I usually need an extra novacaine shot before my jaw is numb to the point where the dentist is satisfied.  But I was finally numb at the spot the dentist wanted.  And apparently he had to use a "special" one;  "carbo-something".

It got bad...  The tooth would not come out.  I could feel it move in the jaw, but it refused to release.  He had to drill and break it all the way down.  He apologized every step of the way.  I was shaking from the sounds of my tooth being broken apart and in anticipation of a sudden jolt of pain (never happened).  

45 minutes of fear and worry.  I have a mantra from the book 'Dune' that helped:  

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

I had to repeat it often...  

Eventually, he said, OK, we're done".  He explained to me afterwards that the tooth was both split to the roots (so it couldn't have been saved by a specialist) and that the roots were unusually deeply anchored (which was probably why it had a filling rather than a crown).

And then there was the healing.  First, he had had to cut at the gum to get the last of the deep roots out and chip some bone away, which required (dissolving) stitches.  He gave me prescriptions for pain (Tylenol 3) and an antibiotic.  And a long list of things not to do...  

They gave me a thick pad of little 2" gauze pads and doubled the usual amount because they expected I would need it.  It was to be folded and held on the wound by light tooth pressure.  I guess that was for the gum cuts on the sides.  I actually had to use a lot of those.  I normally stop bleeding fast, but enough of a wound does need help.  It took a whole day for the bleeding to stop.

The rules they gave me said to ice my cheek every hour, eat only the softest of foods (DUH!), rinse my mouth with salty water several times a day, take an antibiotic pill every 24 hours and Tylenol 3 as needed.  I didn't need the Tylenol 3 or ice.  In fact, I felt no pain at all after the novacaine wore off.  I'm taking the antibiotics as required of course.

I bought a cherry-pitter (I do love cherries).  I've been eating eggs, spaghetti, bananas, soup, boiled veggies, and potatoes, etc, for over a week.  But this too shall pass away.  The jaw bone will heal, the gums will toughen, etc in time.

I know this is a minor problem compared to those of many people.  I'm not trying to seem unusual, brave or stoic or anything.  But it was my rather bad week.

If that is the worst thing that happens to me this year, I will be grateful.  As I slowly slide into my elder years, I expect to experience worse, gradually but inevitably.  Mom always said "growing old isn't for sissies".

Update

The main Mac Mini dessktop HD is erased.  I confirmed that.  It does keep the operating system (High Sierra, not Catalina).  That is a relief.  Apple will probably look back on Catalina some day the way Coca Cola looks back on "New Coke" and Microsoft looks back on the Paperclip  function.

Or maybe not.  Apple might be dedicated to forcing it's users into iCloud and new annual subscription apps forever.  Already, I can see that I am being forced to choose the subscription MS Word and Excek (which I love vs the Apple Pags and Numbers (which have few features).

Fortunately, I have fewer word and spreadsheet demands than I used to, so I might die before they make it a "pay for every use" world.

But that's neither here nor there right now.  Right now, I finally have my OLD Mac Mini (the one BEFORE the one I spilled the wine on - call it the grandparent of the new one and the parent is dead)  being backed up on a 4TB My Passport external HD (51 minutes and counting down).  That isn't over-writing my older backups, just saving what is on my OLD Mac.  The pre-Catalina backups are still there.  4 TB is a lot of storage.

My idea is to save what is on the OLD Mac, (just in case) and restoring the Oct 2019 backup Mac-to-Mac directly.  Since I can't seem to choose the backup to migrate from Time Machine, but CAN if it is the only version on the OLD actual Mac (there being no other choices), I am expecting Migration Assistant will work this time.

Backup 34 minutes and counting...

BTW, my previous migration created 69,000 photo files.  I confirmed that this OLD Mac only says 17,000.  I take that as a sign that there will not be duplicates.  Time and a few more steps over a couple days will tell.  If photos duplicate along the way, maybe this time I will see where it happens.

Backup 10 minutes to go (an hour later, LOL) but it is getting close to finished.  The computer makes a guess on time, and it changes by what files it finds.  It is like a marathon runner not knowing what hills of downslopes it will find.

I didn't waste the time just sitting here.  I cubed 5 pounds of pork shoulder I smoked a couple days ago.  And packed the cubes 4 oz each into ziplock bags and got them in the freezer.  I'm set for any pork meal for months.  Very versatile stuff, pork!

The usual is adding 1 potato, 1 carrot, 1 celery stalk, 1 small onion, a couple cloves garlic, and oregano, thickened with flour.  But smothered in bell peppers or carmelized onion is good.  Mixed with stir fried veggies and served over spaghetti with soy sauce is good.

Well,  the backup is going slowly.  For every GB it backs up, the computer offers more GB,  so I guess it is going to take hours.   It is up to 90GB and the total on the HD is 340,  so I might as well let it run overnight and see what I get this afternoon...

IF it backs the whole current drive up on the OLD Mac, then I Restore the OLD computer with the OCT 2019 backup and THEN Migrate that to the new computer (because thenit will be the only version Migration Assistant can find).  Abd THEN if that works, I might actually be back at Oct 2019.  and possibly be able to copy the photos since the without duplicates AND have my email settings back.

Aren't computers fun?  And then Thursday morning, I get to (try and) capture Marley to stuff him into the PTU and bring him to the vet for HIS teeth cleaning adventure.  Oh the thrill of the chase...!

Oh Bother!

I was innocently eating dinner last night, and suddenly detected a lump in my mouth.  I won't go into details, but I found a tooth crown that had come loose.  I'm glad my tongue found it before my teeth did! 

I washed it off carefully, then put it in a shotglass of mouthwash to keep it overnight.  My dentist had an opening at 3 pm today, so off I went.  I was admitted promptly at 3 pm (be still my beating heart).   First thing they did was sterilize it of course (mouthwash or not - they were kind about that and admired my intent).  Then they examined the tooth for damage and it looking OK, they tried a test re-fit.

It fit so well, they actually had trouble getting it back off.  So they took it away and drilled off the old epoxy.  The dentist Himself came in and showed it to me.  The gold crown was so old it actually had a hole worn through the top.  Well, I had several crowns 40 years ago, so it lasted pretty well.

And I learned something about crowns.  I always thought gold crowns lasted the longest, but was wrong.  Porcelain lasts longest, followed by silver, followed by gold.  And the gold content is low.  But gold wears at about the same rate as tooth enamel, so the bite stays the same.  Silver is close and can easily be ground down to match the bite. 

Porcelain doesn't wear down.  You would think that would be perfect, but it means that the crown top becomes a high spot over decades and makes your jaw adjust and some annoying stuff like that.  It is mostly for cosmetic reasons.  Well, I seriously doubt anyone other than a dentist will ever see that back molar.

The old crown was replaced, but it is temporary (like a year or 3).  It still has that tiny hole in the top, and that will lead to caries someday.  But "tis enough, will serve"...

But it also meant he looked at my other teeth.  I knew there were 2 other teeth that had sharp tops, which meant damage.  I'd been avoiding it. 

But you have to get such things fixed eventually.  As the dentist said, "you can have them fixed now while I can still put a crown on them, or you can wait until they have to be removed entirely".  So I have an appointment in 2 weeks to start getting those 2 teeth crowned, and then the old (now temporary) one from today replaced over a series of visits. 

I hate dental visits.  Well, no one likes them, but mine are worse than average.  I have a small jaw (apparently genetic) and can't open it as far as most people can.  My cats can open theirs more than I can!  A kitten probably can...  I have the jaw of a 12 year old!  In general, I have great genes - other than my teeth.  I seem to owe that to Dad.  At my age, he had almost no tooth unfilled, uncrowned, and 2 partial bridges.  At least I'm not at that point yet.  Hurray for fluoridation and novocaine (and nitrous oxide on occasion during a root canal).

My jaw is so small, my wisdom teeth never even emerged, and even then my teeth are too crowded.  In my 20s, a dentist said I should have 4 teeth extracted; a left upper and lower; a right upper and lower, make proper room for the rest.  At the time, that seemed horrible!  He said it would be painful afterwards for days.  But now I wish I had had that done.  Nothing like hindsight...

As it turned out, I had to have 2 teeth extracted 4 years ago.  One planned because it had simply fallen apart, and one unplanned because the roots were entangled  in the first.  Fortunately, it didn't bother me.  But the thing that amazed me was that the procedure wasn't the least bit painful (as the old dentist suggested it would be).  It was however utterly boring (no pun intended).  Drilling, spitting, holding my head to resist pulls, etc.  Never hurt in the least during or after!

On the other hand, I have a limited number of teeth, so I would like to keep them as long as possible.  Anything good for 20 years is probably OK.

So I'm going on a journey of dental work, which should last until flu season is over.  Then to a doctor to start getting regular exams and a series of physical and virtual exams that my insurance rep says is covered these days as "preventative medicine".  I plan to get every "virtual" test they will allow, and possible some not covered. 

On sad fact is that I've never been to any one doctor for more than a few years, so my medical history is almost non-existent.  But I went through my age-old medical file today and discovered some valuable information. 

Things like a 1988 letter from Mom (in response to my questions) detailing some family and personal history, some old doctor visit bills - a few of which mentioned some blood test results - etc.  I'll make copies to bring to my new doctor (I chose a geriatric internist over a GP).

But the important thing is that I'm getting back on track for regular medical care after decades of assuming I was immortal.  I've treated my cats and maintained my car better than I have myself.

Time to get myself into the maintenance loop...

Crown Of Gold

Well, I'm sitting here contemplating the Gold Crown on the table in front of me.  Unfortunately, its not the kingly type of crown.  Its the kind that comes loose from a tooth!

It hardly seems fair.  I don't eat hard candies.  I don't crunch on ice cubes.  I don't eat really sticky stuff like taffy.  I was simply eating a bit of marinated boneless skinless chicken breast.  But it seems there was a tiny flake of bone in there.  It jammed in between 2 teeth like an ax into a log.

I was careful, I really was!  I used a wooden toothpick, I tried to remove the bone flake with downward pressure front and back for several cautious minutes.  When it finally seemed to loosen slightly, I OH SO CAREFULLY tried to lift it back out the way it entered. 

The length of time between feeling a slight movement and the realization that it was a crown coming loose was infinitesimal.  Seriously, I didn't even know that tooth HAD a crown.  I have a half dozen scattered around and after a month I can't tell where they are.  That's kind of the whole point of having them...

If dental stuff is icky to you, you might want to just skim ahead...

The last thing I was expecting earlier today was having to call a dentist tomorrow for an appointment.  But life is what happens when you aren't expecting it.  I suppose I should have though.  I may have gotten good cold and flu resistance genes from my parents, but the tooth genes were not so good.  Dad had only half his teeth by my age and a mouthful of partial dentures that seemed to come loose every 3 or 4 years.  He complained about it a lot.

In fact, my wisdom teeth never emerged.   X-Rays show them, but apparently they are blocked or something.  Side note:  Wisdom teeth are slowly vanishing from humans.  Some people don't have them, in others, they don't emerge.  Someday we won't have them at all.

I don't hate dentists!  What they do is valuable for relieving pain and making it easy to eat, etc.  But I DO hate dental work.  I was cursed with a small jaw and therefore crowded teeth.  When I was in my 20s one dentist wanted to pull a couple of teeth "to give me a better smile".  That sounded miserable and I wasn't concerned with what I perceived to be cosmetic dentistry.  I wish he had been more straightforward!  I only learned many years later that there had still been time for the remaining teeth to slowly spread to normal positions (or so another dentist told me in my 50s).

And some dental work is seemingly worse for most but easier for me.  I'll just say that layin on my back while someone is messing around in my mouth is physically horrible (2 words - "nasal drip"), but sitting upright is OK. 

So when a tooth utterly broke 2 years ago and the dentist had to pull it out, I was worried at the time, the the pulling was mostly just boring.  And when he told my the tooth root was interlocked with the one next to it and had to come out too, I just said "sure"... 

I haven't had any problems with the 2 removed teeth.  Can't even tell they are missing when I chew.

But last year, suddenly 2 small fillings came out in upper back molars.  I had been planning to (and delaying) making an appointment.  Now it's forced, so I will have something done to those.  I hope they are refillable, but if they have to be removed I might find that easier.

And since I'm going on a dentist journey, I may see about implants for the 2 previously pulled teeth.  If (and only if)  they will be essentially permanent. 

Some day, we humans will learn how to grow new teeth as adults.  And there IS research toward that end.  Until then - AARRGGGHHH!

Tooth Pulled

Well, I ended up having TWO teeth pulled Thursday!  It was much less bad than I feared or had read about.  The novacaine worked well enough so that I never really felt anything during the extractions.  Oh, there was some pulling sensation, and I got poked on the other side by accident a few times, but the most disturbing part was the tooth-breaking noises and the dentist complaining that the main tooth just didn't want to come out.

He gave me a prescription for vicodin, but I didn't really feel that bad after the novacaine wore off, so I took the minimum dosage.

But I also had a plan to get through as much of the first 24 hours as easily as possible!  First, I stayed up all night and day before the appointment.  Then after the novacaine wore off about 5 pm, drank 2 bowls of soup (cream of mushroom and chicken noodle). 

I went to bed at 8 pm!  Other than taking another vicodin whenever I woke up after 4 hours, I stayed in bed until 4pm.  Yes, 20 hours!  And I only got up then to feed the cats...  So I had a bowl of spaghetti.  It seemed like the softest solid food I had.  But it meant I pretty much slept through the 24 hours after the extractions.

A curious part of the whole operation was that the dentist put a blood pressure cuff on me that automatically inflated, displayed my blood pressure, then deflated.  And did that every few minutes the entire time.  I'd been wondering about my blood pressure for years.  Sitting in a dentists chair, awaiting the operation, it was 120/70.  The highest it got the whole time was 157/85.  The dentist was surprized too.  When he saw the first one, he laughed and said "You're going to be just fine".

I don't consciously do meditation or related relaxation techniques, but as I was sitting there waiting for the novacaine to take effect, I recalled snippets of a mantra from the sci-fi book 'Dune'.  I basically came up with "Fear is the mind-killer.  I will not allow fear to control me.  I will adapt to the requirements of the moment."  I don't know if that actually had any effect, but it seemed to do no harm either.

Naturally, I looked up the quote when I got home.  It reads, in full, 

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

But there is another part to my scheduling plan.  There is a brand new meteor shower that will be visible in all of North America from 2-4 am EDT Saturday (as in 2 to 4 hours after Friday midnight, Washington DC time.  It may be a spectacular Meteor Storm (1,000+ meteors per hour) or it may be a dud.  The meteors will come out of a spot dead north (just to the right and down from the Big Dipper.

So be staying in bed so late today, I will be awake at that time!  And for once during the regular meteor showers, it will be warm AND the sky will be clear.  I sure hope it is spectacular.  I've never seen a good in my life!  

Back to the dental work.  My tongue tells me that there is a HUGE GAPING HOLE in the back right upper side.  The jaw hurts to open fully, but that's from the novacaine shot (I've experienced that from past dental work).  I suppose I will wait longer than necessary to chew on that side of my mouth agai.  Well, I've been chewing on one side for a couple months, so another week won't matter.

But I seem to have gotten through...