The wonders of modern technology…

Go way beyond the simply staying alive variety albeit those are the most important : without penicillin my husband would have died at age 32 when he had endocarditis, then again his heart would eventually have failed at 34 had they not had heart-lung machines to perform open-heart surgery and replace a malfunctioning valve. Imagine, we never would have met, I wouldn’t have my two sons nor the life that I lived with him and now without him.

It’s also very personal as without modern detection measures I would probably not be here either (a bout of breast cancer in 1998 and another in 2013).

However, it’s not always the life-saving measures that mean as much as the comfort ones.

Glasses or contact lenses to correct deficient sight, without which I would no longer be able to drive (o.k. probably couldn’t have learned in the first place as my first pair of glasses was at age 10 !) ; casts to mend broken limbs or sprained members (one does recall the pictures in history books of gnarled limbs and people at the circus freak shows, many of whose problems were simply due to broken bones that hadn’t been set).

Last year, my blog followers may recall (if so you do better than I most days) that one of my if-it-can-be-awful it will be days, mentioned losing a molar when the old filling finally cracked the tooth and it had to be extracted.

Now I won’t fault my former dentist, it is up to the customer to get a second opinion, but we all have trouble (don’t we ?) letting go of our desire to not to have to make changes. Anyway, this year I needed to go to the dental hygienist and after a friend raved about the treatment that she was having for her gums at this new place I decided to give it a try.

The hygenist could have been my grand-daughter (if I had had my kids young and they had actually gone on to have some themselves, which isn’t the case, still you get the idea : she was young !), but was very thorough. I mentioned the problem to her and as she wanted the dentist to take a look anyway at the molar on the other side, I did see the dentist. WOW, she was willing to try and take the old filling out and put in a new one. The only caveat being that if the tooth itself wasn’t healthy underneath or there was too much to entirely fill, she might need to have a bit of tooth made (of course it would cost measurably more as well…).

I wish that I had had a video taken – getting the filling out was a bit tiresome (I hate having to hold my mouth that wide open for such a long period of time), but at moments almost fun : my tooth « sang ». I am not kidding – part of the polishing of the inside where the filling had been actually produced all the notes on the scale. Of course I needed the extra treatment. Tuesday I got the replacement tooth bit (for want of a better word : not a cap, truly a small bit of the missing tooth for which she had taken a mold the week before) glued in place and filed down to match my bite.

You’d never know the difference. I now don’t need to lose that tooth and in the grand scheme of things the price even was a lot cheaper than not eating well or having to get dentures.

Without these modern technological advances, my life would not be as comfortable so I am grateful for every one of them !

A trip to the dentist or…

A wonderful half hour. 

 

 

I know, I know, half of you had to re-read that title two or three times, the other half are wondering when they should contact my sons to see if I am o.k.

But, as usual, there is a reason for my euphoria concerning a dental visit.

Last fall in early September I went for a check-up and dental hygiene (I have a lovely dentist who does all her own work from cleaning teeth to the x-rays to the more serious items such as cavity filling: she doesn’t do implants, but that’s another story). X-rays were duly taken, my teeth cleaned and admired (most European dentists stand in awe of American teeth) and that was that, or so I thought.

In October my rear right molar started having twinges off and on, but I bore up until the end of November when I really thought I had best check it out: the dentist could find nothing. Still feeling pain along the jaw so went first to my family doctor who manipulated my jaw (thinking that perhaps there was a slight dislocation): nothing. Back to the dentist just before Christmas – still nothing visible and she suggested that it might perhaps be my trigeminal nerve. Whatever it was so painful that I ended up one Saturday morning in emergency to get some relief.  A period of heavy painkillers followed, along with an MRI to make sure that there was nothing wrong in my head (o.k., I know, I know…. Ssshhhhhh). Shortly thereafter I slipped on black ice, hit my head and that did the trick, no more pain along the jaw. After a spring  full of other medical events my molar started hurting again…my own dentists was on vacation so went to the emergency dental clinic whereupon they discovered that the fillings (from 50 years ago…) had cracked it in half so it had to be extracted.

Then the other side started to feel sensitive too: back to the dentist who, again, couldn’t see anything wrong. We decided though that I should be wearing a tooth guard nights so duly made one (and it is helping).

This visit was to finally clean my teeth after a year – and miracle of miracles – no sensitive spots, no pain, not even my usual bleeding, which means that my new electric toothbrush is even better than the old.

It was a wonderful visit and now even the sun has  made a brief appearance to celebrate. Life is good!

Enough already!

I truly thought that perhaps this household’s woes were behind us – think again.

I had had tooth problems last fall, which led to nerve problems, which a fall on my head (black ice) solved. Then we had other things, but the tooth was quiet.

That is until about a week or ten days ago when it started aching again.

Managed to ignore it as was in the midst of other much more entertaining events (as well as the more serious ones: house mate’s fall and operation). Friday night though I noticed that the filling had a hole in it, then Saturday that there was a slight crack in between filling and tooth, then last night that I could actually take the filling out (I didn’t as figured things were already bad enough).

This morning as I had to go into town I dropped by my dentist’s office who, of course, was on vacation. I debated returning home and calling her number to get her replacement, then thought: no, I’m here; I’ll go to the dental emergency office.

Explained the problem and was lucky enough to be able to wait (only 5 minutes) before someone was free: one of those doctors who – again – seemed to just be out of kinder garden. So yes the filling could come out, but the reason it could, was that the tooth was broken in half. Didn’t take them long to convince me that it needed to come out, I was there, they were ready.

So, other than those baby teeth (ever so cute) I have lost my first “real” tooth at the ripe old age of 65.  That isn’t much of a problem as it doesn’t need replacing (I’ll get a second opinion though when my dentist returns), but there was an infection so I am on antibiotics for 7 days too…

The true downside: no hot drinks for 2 days (my coffee, my coffee) nor rinsing of mouth etc. Also will now worry about the other three molars, which also have fillings (it turns out that the mercury in the fillings expands over time and we are talking about fillings that are at least 40 years old!). Am a chicken so took pain killers after I had my two yogurts and apple sauce for lunch to create a lining for the antibiotics and currently have minimal pain (but I was the one who had no pain after my wisdom teeth were removed), but discomfort and the shock are not a good way to start the week – a true Monday.

Ah, but tomorrow's another day and if the good things never last, neither do the bad!

So bye-bye molar, hello no pain. Should have kept the mercury to make a thermometer.