• Dental Phobia Support

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So much for being brave...

V

verloren1983

Junior member
Joined
Nov 26, 2017
Messages
5
Location
Upstate NY
I'm mostly here to try to hold myself accountable, since I'm historically terrible at that. We'll see how this goes.

The last time I was on these forums was about two years ago when I had a back molar abscess and was freaking out. I said then that it was going to be a mission for me to get better dental insurance and start working on dealing with my disaster area of a mouth, after the abscess was taken care of, if I was brave. Well... on the upside, I do have better insurance now. On the downside, I've been paying for it for a year and a half for apparently no reason, because I have yet to use it. Sigh. So much for being brave. (For the record, yes, I did get the abscess pulled back then. I just haven't been back to a dentist since.)

Well, now I have a couple of new problems that have cropped up. One is an old impacted wisdom tooth that has some kind of infection. It doesn't really hurt that much, but it's creating a lot of pus, which is both making me cough and choke and nauseous all the time, and also tastes *unreal*. Like, I can't even explain to you guys how bad this is. It's been making life thoroughly miserable and yet I've still been putting off going to the dentist. Mostly because I'm 36 and I already know that getting a wisdom tooth removed is going to be a freaking trial and a half at my age. Sigh.

Problem two came up today- a front tooth that has been broken since I was 11 has abscessed and my top lip has quickly swollen up like a freaking balloon. Honestly, I'm surprised it took this long. I have a double at work tomorrow and a coworker out with carpal tunnel surgery so calling out is not an option, so I have to deal for at least tomorrow. In the meantime, I figure I'll take some fish amoxicillan and see if that helps with the swelling/pain for the moment (yes, I *know*, I wouldn't if I wasn't so desperate and in so much pain.)

I think what scared me the most, honestly, is when I got out the shower tonight and was getting dressed, and I suddenly got so dizzy that I had to sit down for about ten minutes. I immediately became convinced that one of the two teeth is turning septic, but realistically after some research it's probably just that I haven't eaten all day and my blood pressure dived when I got out of the hot shower. Oops. :rolleyes:

Between these two things, this might actually get me back to the dentist before the end of the year. I've had an in-network dentist selected for a while now (who does emergency appointments, yay), so I just have to call. We'll see if I manage that tomorrow. In the meantime, I guess it's time for more pain meds and to try to sleep, since I need to be up in about six hours for work. Hooray.
 
My work only offers the "good" dental insurance every other year. 4 years ago I panicked and added it on just to be safe. I have never used it but am glad I have it for when I need it. It's about $70 more a month than the regular dental but I gladly pay it for the peace of mind.

I also recently experienced getting dizzy and thought about septic but after researching I found that it is VERY uncommon and since I started forcing myself to eat more it happens a whole lot less.

I am right there with you thinking I may make it to the dentist before the year is up. Then I think about Thanksgiving coming up and then Christmas. Taking time off of work is never convenient. ;)

I have never experienced an abscess but I do hope that you are out of pain soon!
 
Didn't think I'd update quite this soon, but about ten minutes after I posted that (and was still putting off taking pain meds, as I have a tendency to do, like the pain will just go away), the abscess popped. Not the whole thing, but the white pus part. And that was literally after just putting some clove oil on it earlier yesterday and about an hour and a half after the first antibiotic dose, so basically nothing I did. My face is still swollen (and there's still an abscess there, but it looks a lot better now), but the pain is gone. Obviously I know that this doesn't ultimately solve the problem and I'll still need to deal with this and get the tooth pulled, but at least if I can get the swelling to go down, I can probably get the dentist to focus on the wisdom tooth that's really impacting my quality of life at this point, instead of the currently more obvious infection.

@DentalFearMom, that's crazy that you only get that every other year. What are you supposed to do in the meantime? I've been thinking about the holidays coming up too, especially working in retail management. I do still have two days of holiday to use before the end of the year, but yikes, bad timing. But there's always something I guess. Either way, my insurance year goes from June-May, so I have some time yet. Which is good, because my company is probably changing the already crappy insurance to something crappier. Yaaaaaay. If I'm smart (and brave), I should get them to pay for whatever I can get them to pay for before that happens. :grin:
 
I can only sign up for it every other year. So if I didn't sign up for it 4 years ago it would have been another 2 years before I had the option again. They just force us to stay with the plan for a minimum of 2 years at a time but I have had it for a full 4 years.

My insurance year runs Jan-Dec so if I were smart and brave I'd have some of the work done this year and some done next year to have the deductible met for 2019. This would potentially save me a lot of money but I'm not in any pain so it's easy for me to procrastinate.

Insurance is a joke. I work very closely with a dental office so I know they pay a lot of money for the lab equipment they use so I can't blame the offices for charging what they do.

I'm glad you are out of pain. The last crappy insurance I was offered through work stated they paid 100% of the allowable for cleanings. Took my kids to have their cleanings done and fluoride treatment and they handed me a bill for like $450. After insisting this must be a mistake I called the insurance and they stated they did pay 100% of the allowable....which to them was $19. Switching to the more expensive dental plan was one of the easiest things after that.
 
Yikes, I hope you can get your teeth treated soon! I had a chipped front tooth (from when I was a kid) that abscessed (with no pain until it got really bad) but the abscess tunneled back into the palate so it never reached the surface. It started hurting last year and the abscess was discovered and the endodontist said it had probably been there a few years. I had mine extracted almost two months ago. I avoided extraction for a long time, too scared to do it, but now I am glad I did.
 
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