More mouth drama...

I've been able to pretty successfully drug myself up with Excedrin, Advil, and clove oil (I especially recommend the latter) during this whole thing. Well, yesterday afternoon and night, not so much. No drug would mask the stabbing pain that came on.

Weird thing: I had discovered the day before or so that if I held some water in my cheek where the bad teeth were, it would stop the pain. I discovered yesterday that doing this was the ONLY thing that would stop the pain, and every time I had to swallow (because really, you can't hold water in there forever), it would start stabbing in pain in another 18-25 seconds. Yes, I counted.

I had a writer's group meeting last night and was taking a drink like every five seconds. I'm sure the guy across from me was thinking, "What the hell is wrong with her?" I had to go to the bathroom twice and of course the store that we meet in's bathroom was closed...and I'd run out of water and have STABBING PAIN again by the time I hit the nearest restaurant toilet and have to slurp water out of the sink in order to make it back pain-free. Pa-the-tic. Also, WAY TOO MUCH PEEING.

Happily, the meeting got out early for a change, so I hit the nearest store (the co-op) to look for new drugs since the old ones had died. I got some Aleve (never used it before), popped it open as I was walking home, and then promptly spitpuked it back up onto the sidewalk. NASTIEST STUFF EVER ON THIS EARTH!

At this point, in between the drinking and the peeing, and it was 10 p.m. and I could do nothing, I had to admit there was too severe a problem to wait around for my now-ex-dentist to recommend me someone. (He never did do that. Gee, thanks.) Adding to the fun, didya know dentists generally don't work on Fridays? PANIC EFFING TIME.

Now, somehow the old drugs managed to kick in around 11:45 p.m., so I could at least spend about 8 1/2 hours pain-free and feeling normal again. But between the constant peeing and the OMGEFFINGPANIC, I didn't sleep a wink. Joy. So I was up researching dentists off the local wiki. And thinking, what the hell do I do? Who takes emergencies? Who takes perpetual gaggers who are nothing but trouble? The wiki helped a LOT- people definitely tag who's nice, who's a scammer, and who takes what insurance, which was incredibly helpful. (Especially since my dental insurance website listed a whopping four guys who took them...all of whom were not well regarded on the wiki.)

I found one guy who sounded SUPERnice (plus dorky enough to answer people's dental questions on the wiki) and decided he'd be my first choice, then I made a list of people to call in reserve. I didn't know who the hell I'd call, though. One of them was the guy I saw in town once before, but I hadn't liked him then either.

So at 8 a.m. I called choice #1...and they were willing to take me as soon as I could get there. And the dentist WAS very supernice. And they had tricks so I didn't gag doing X-rays for the first time since EVER. I didn't even cry in there like usual, even though the odds of a root canal being in my future are 99% (joy, oh well, I always knew I'd have to have some and a lot of 'em someday). So, I left feeling pretty good, all things considered.

Can't exactly say I am looking forward to tomorrow- no, they won't knock me out, WAH- but it needs to be done before all the drugs poop out.

(Ironically, a friend of mine is also having tooth issues and got one pulled today. So much for asking her if I need a ride tomorrow...well, hopefully I'll be okay since I can take the bus and wouldn't drive over anyway.)

Here's something I can't help but wonder about: don't dentists deal with gaggers all the time? There's more out there than just me, even though I'm a particularly virulent version of the species. (My mom is now going around my hometown having people tell her how they are also dental pains.) I mean, I'm sure dentists themselves aren't ever gaggers or else they wouldn't be in the profession because they weren't traumatized at an early age like us anti-dentites, but you'd think, "Don't you deal with this every DAY? Don't you have some like, tips or solutions or something?"

For the record, tips my ex-dentist came up with:
* stop using toothpaste, it's only there as mouth lube. (This helped a bit.)
* small headed toothbrushes (ditto)
* doing a shot of Jack Daniels every morning. (This might have been a joke.)

Now, new dentist/hygenist thwarted the whole X-ray-from-hell thing by:

(a) having a mouth-numbing mouthwash. WHY THE HELL HASN'T MY PREVIOUS DENTIST EVER HEARD OF THIS?!
(b) instead of jamming fingers + bite plates into my mouth at once, the bite plates were attached to some kinda plier-ish wire thingies, so it was much less crap in the mouth than usual upon entry.
(c) had me lift a leg while doing that. (Saw this trick mentioned online. By gum, it works. I dunno if flamingo-ing works while standing at a sink at home though...but I wish!)

So, clearly they have some finesse. But when I once again asked for tips at home, like, is there any kind of numbing agent I can take at home...nope, doesn't know of any, except for one that's possibly carcinogenic and let's not go there.

Really? Is it THAT much of a stumper, even for the pros? Shouldn't this be something everyone should have worked out by now?

Meanwhile, the Internet told me to spray snore spray(?!) down my throat before brushing. So I'm going to give that a go.

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