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Just going to rant!!

A

Airi

Member
Joined
Jul 24, 2018
Messages
24
Location
Malaysia
Hi,

Sorry but I'm just going to vent and rant in here. Any advice are welcome, and really appreciated.

I guess it's my fault for neglecting my oral health and avoiding dentist for 20 years. (my last dentist visit was when I was 12 and its a must for all students). After that I never ever go to dentist even when my tooth comes off and some teeth even emerge over the loose teeth before the loose teeth fell.

I only do brushing and occasionally using mouthwash and rarely floss (only when food stuck in between teeth). My gum has bleed in the past while brushing and flossing, but it just once a while, so I ignore it.

I'm not scared of dentist or doctor, it just that I don't want to hear any bad news. Cause for me it's enough hearing this news from them about my parents and my brother. (my mom got breast cancer, dad got stroke and my brother got nephrotic ) So, hearing more bad news will bring stress to mom and me. So I avoid them totally.

Until 3 month ago, my gum start to bleed on daily basis, (3 or 4 times a day sometimes more) . The first two months I just ignore it hoping it will stop. But when the third month come it didn't seem to lessen, I decided to do something.

I change my toothpaste, I use parodontax. It lessen the bleeding but still happen for more than twics daily. And I take courage to go see a dentist in general hospital . The dentist said my gum was inflammed due to plaque and calculus build up. And there was hole in 3 of my teeth.

He decided to do scaling, after that my gum still bleed but only twice daily. I up my brushing from twice a day to three times, still my part of my gum bleed a lot, while other part just bleed a little or stop bleeding totally.

After two weeks of my first visit, I go to the dentist again to fill the hole, and I told the dentist about the bleeding (he ask about my health condition to rule out other reasons, even though I'm in the obese category, but I don't have high blood pressure or diabetes and no sudden weight loss , so other reasons was rule out). He than did a thorough check to see if there is something more serious than inflammation, but there's none.

But he find plaque deep in one of the bleeding gum, and goes really deep to clean it. And also fillings the hole in one of my teeth, he don't want to do two other hole on my wisdom tooth in fear that it will irritate my gum more. (since both of it grow parallel to my gum). He also tell me to come to him if anybody the wisdom tooth hurt, so he will remove it.

The doctor said that my gums are healing nicely and there is less swollen area from the previous appointment. The hole also not so serious. He also told me to see him before the year end if there is nothing serious.
 
After the first appointment my anxiety start taking over, I keep on thinking unnecessary thing, it takes toll on myself, I start not eating, worry that gums will bleed if I eat anything, not socializing with people worry that my gum will bleed in front of them, my work become a mess, I can't do my work properly, I got irritated so fast and worse I become obsessed with my gums, checking it every second. Sometimes I got too tired with the bleed I force my gum to bleed more in hope that it will cure soon.

I seriously think to pull out all of my tooth. I even put sea cucumber oil (traditionally for cut in my country ) for a few days. I stop doing that since I can't stand the taste.

After the second appointment, I manage to control the anxiety after what dentist tell me that being stressed will not help in healing my gums. So now I take an approach not to care about my gums if it bleed a little. My gums still bleed a little and it quickly stop after that. I also used another toothpaste from natura house (Italian brand) mix with eucalyptus oil, and use herbal ginger mouthwash from Listerine. I still used parodontax but only once a day, since I find it to harsh and abrasive to my gum.

Til now my gums still bleed, (little) and my don't care approach help me get my life together again.
 
I fall to anxiety because I forget to count the blessing, I keep on looking at the negative side rather than positive one. And I expect things will cure instantly after years of neglect.

I forgot to realize that there are more pink gum rather than the angry red one, I forget to notice my mouth tastes better rather than bitter taste everytime I wake up. I forget to see that there is now less bleeding, and tend to fuss on that little bleed. I definitely forget that its my own faulty
gums become like this.

Now I promise myself to never ever neglect my oral care or take it for granted. I still eat chocolate, ice cream and other stuffs but I will brush my teeth or at least rinse it after that.
 
It has been 3 days my gums, stop bleeding, and it takes a pharmacist to tell me what wrong with my gums. Turn out the dentist didn't prescribe me any antibiotics to stop the infection. I've been given amoxycillin 500mg and metronidazole 250mg to be taken 3 times a day. And I see different in my trouble gums. I pray this going to be the end of my bleeding gum journey. Its more than enough mental anxiety for me.
 
Dear Airi,

I’m really sorry that your ordeal with bleeding gums is still going on.. I am however not sure if a pharmacist giving you antibiotics is a good thing. I am aware that dentistry and medication might have different standards so how things work in my country might be different than in yours, but my point is this: there are a lot of bacteria in your mouth and they are there whole the time. Some of them are not doing any harm, some of them can help to cause decay and some of them can cause different forms of gum desease.

A dental cleaning can take care of them and deep cleaning can take care of the ones that can cause gum desease. Before a dentist would prescribe antibiotics in my country, he/she would do a test to asses which bacteria are there and if antibiotics are necessary. The combination you got from your pharmacist is something that would be used only in case of an aggressive gum desease and would have to be prooved by the test.

Needless to say that someone who gets antibiotics due to gum desease needs a good monitoring afterwards to make sure that the gums are healing and also to plan further therapy.

I know you already asked your dentist, but it might be a good idea to either ask another time or to seek a second opinion. You should get a proper diagnosis about your gums to know what was wrong and to know if the bleeding is a part of the irritation after the cleening or needs further treatment.

Again, dentistry works differently in every country, I just feel like the best answer for anything thats about gums would still be a dentist.

All the best wishes and hopefully your gums get well soon.
 
Thanks, I will ask other dentist about the antibiotic on my next appt, and show him the antibiotic.
 
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