Day and night – I can feel the pain. Whether I’m walking, sitting, sleeping, or eating, the pain won’t go away.
Sigh. The gums next to my tooth in the top back left are so swollen and I can feel the heat burning through my cheek. I squeezed my cheek, pulled it out, and looked at my mouth in a mirror. I can even see the big bump on my gums. Why is it so swollen?
It was difficult to eat and every chew seemed to make my cheek rub against my gums even more. I went to buy a new bottle of mouthwash. Maybe that will help reduce the swelling. The mouthwash did the trick. I felt the burn in that area, and after a few washes, my gums were significantly less swollen, but still slightly swollen.
I left it alone for a few days since it had stopped bothering me, but kept using my mouthwash. It didn’t worsen, but it didn’t get much better either. Occasionally, I would gently tap it with my tongue, and every time I did that, my tongue also felt something different with my tooth in that area. Is something stuck in my teeth that I haven’t been able to get out?
I looked and looked in a mirror. My tooth was on the top and in the back so it was really hard to see. I used a flashlight to shine to the back as best as I could while trying to look at the mirror. It was almost impossible. I decided to take a picture instead. After a few tries, I got a clear photo.
My tooth looked weird. It didn’t look normal. What is that line running in the middle of my tooth? Why does it look like I’m missing a piece of my tooth?
I sent an email to my dentist at 1:13am in the morning with the photo of my tooth and asked if I needed to get it checked. I don’t know what response I was expecting, but I certainly did not expect to read this first thing in the morning:
“You broke your tooth in half!”
I…what?? Are you SURE I broke it in half just by looking at the photo? (Okay, the line through the middle of my tooth did look pretty bad…but are you REALLY sure?). I didn’t even eat any hard food recently. How did my tooth break in half? How is that even possible?
A million questions popped in my head with no answer. I kept reading.
“Unfortunately when it breaks like this the only option is to remove it. And eventually replace it with a dental implant. I will send you a referral to an oral surgeon so that they can remove it ASAP.”
I read the email again. Am I just not awake yet? My tooth needs to be removed??
Hours later, I found myself lying on the surgical chair. The oral surgeon poked my gums with a needle a few times to numb it, then proceeded to extract my tooth. Tears rolled down my cheeks at the thought of losing my tooth that’s been chewing food for me for so many years. The procedure did not take long, and soon after, I was driving home with gauze pads in my mouth.
I laid in bed the rest of the day, thinking about my missing tooth. The physical pain was not even close to the pain of losing a piece of me nor was it close to the pain of having to spend so much for the tooth extraction. No pain killer could have taken away the pain.
My once hard-working tooth is now forever gone and my mouth is left with an empty hole as a daily reminder of what was once there.