trial by ache

i always thought my teeth were invincible ripping machines... until about a week ago.

i felt my right, lower molar aching about midday last saturday. i shrugged it off thinking it'll just go away, as what does usually happens anyway. but it didn't go away completely, it subsided a little sporadically over the next few days.

by monday, right about before i left the office, the ache came back in full glory. my golly-gosh-gash! it was so freakin' painful(and i do have a high tolerance for pain, bordering on becoming a masochist in fact. but i'm not saying masochists have a high tolerance for pain...). the kind which makes your legs cringe and your head float and your tears swell. its like eating through your very soul. uh, well, no. that's a little bit too melodramatically exaggerated for a toothache, but you get the picture. i took two advils and still nothing. the drive home was a nightmare. i got my bro to look-up an emergency dentist nearby but it i'm uninsured and its waaaaaay too expensive. he's going to charge me 900 bucks for the root canal, 400 to plug it up, and an additional ??? amount for the crown(which could come in silver, gold or ivory or any bling-bling metal). so i got a bottle of tylenol instead.

but tuesday was worse, the ache was there since i woke up. it didn't let up even with three tylenols(don't do that guys, it could potentially cause stomach bleeding). so by midday, i had to leave the office and went on to search for a dentist who accepts walk-ins who won't charge emergency fees. the only one i found(well, more like the only one i went to) couldn't see me til the morning after. so i went home to just sleep it off and hope tomorrow comes soon enough.

but my aunt found this dentist, a filipina, who was willing to see me. only thing was, she was all the way across town. made it to her clinic, and upon examining my tooth, concluded that she can't do anything yet cause it already had an infection(read: abscess). so it had to be dried out first. so that means it'll be a week before she could pull it the tooth out(by this point, i was all for tooth extraction, root canals are just waaay to expensive. not to mention there's no guarantee that its not gonna cause me anymore problems). so, to help with the pain, she also prescribed me narcotics aside from the antibiotics for the bacteria.

for the normal person, that would've worked. but i'm a-b-normal, so it didn't work quite as well(that's why i'm not abnormal, there are still some lines to be crossed/removed before i become one). the antibiotics prescribed to me were literally old hat for my bacteria. it weak for me cause since i was young, i have been bombarded again and again with progressively more and more powerful antibiotics, thanks to my super easy to infect tonsils. the last culture test for back in manila about three years ago showed about only three types of antibiotics which would still work great for me, the others are already too weak for my bacteria and therefore may not be able to get rid of them.

so basically, i spent wednesday, thursday and friday at home nursing the throbbing pain in my mouth when i'm awake. oh, did i mention that my gums developed a sore as well? perfect. the narcotics they gave me wasn't that strong(or i guess the pain was really that strong), but it did put me to sleep whenever i take it. so the only time i was able to work was on the hour when the narcotics wear off which means its time for the next pill and the next wait till it kicks in.

now, i realized that it hasn't been my tooth that's been aching for a long time now but my gums. oh well, same difference. anyway, since by friday the pain was still there, it was time to change the antibiotics that as given to me because it was indeed to weak for me. so the dentist gave me pennicillin instead. erm, to tell you the truth, this is the first time i've ever taken pennicillin. and that's good cause that means my bacteria doesn't know pennicillin yet and so it has a better chance to get rid of them.

and yes, finally, saturday, on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the most painful, its now a stable 1! i'm finally able to eat again. i still feel it, though, but its not really aching anymore, its like a reminder now that i have a toothache.

so, my message to all of you is... no amount of money can ever pay for the pain a toothache can cause. so tooth fairy, don't insult what i went through with a quarter.