I was really looking forward to today, and my appointment with the dentist.

Yes.  I was looking forward to seeing the dentist.

At the same time, I was dreading it.

For the past while, I’ve been having a lot of pain – especially once I lay down in bed – on the right side of my face.  From what I was feeling, it was 3 teeth that were giving me trouble.  One was a wisdom tooth that I seriously considered getting pulled the last time I was at the dentist.  (The dentist actually remembered pulling the remains of that tooth!)  Then there were two more, top and bottom, halfway along my jaw that had a lot of pain.

I have had problems with my teeth for many years, so I was fully prepared for the worst, and trying to figure out how we were going to pay for it all, even with insurance.  I was even ready to have a whole bunch of teeth pulled, and going with dentures.

Last time, just the one tooth was X-rayed.  This time, my whole mouth was done, with a couple extra around the ones that were bothering me more.  Then the dentist came to take a look.

After poking and prodding and tapping various teeth, she gave me her assessment.

My teeth are pretty much fine.

Oh, there was the wisdom tooth that she offered to pull right away, but other than that, a couple of very minor cavities and that’s it.  I can come back to do those any time I’m ready.

However…

(yeah, you knew there was a “but…” coming, didn’t you? :-D )

… It turns out I have mouth ulcers.

Now, the last time I was there, there weren’t any.  So this is a new thing.

In a nutshell, she said they could be the cause of the pain I was having in my teeth, as they looked to be shingles or something like that.  The wisdom tooth that needed to go would also have been causing radiating pain.  We concluded I was over the worst of it, as opposed to being at the start of a flare up.

There’s really no treatment for it.  Take painkillers (I already do, because of my arthritis).  Avoid acidic things like orange juice (I almost never drink orange juice) and spicy food (which I can’t eat anyways, as much as I’d love to), drink lots of fluids, get good nutrition, lots of rest – especially over the next 3 days – and just take good care of myself in general.  It’ll go away on its own.

Now that I know this, I wonder about some problems I’ve had in the past that I thought were my teeth, but then went away.  This was during some very stressful times.  Stress would trigger flare ups for something like this.

So I’m feeling a lot better right now!

Then she pulled the wisdom tooth for me, and it was over almost before I knew it!  Much easier then the last one, that’s for sure!!

So for the next few days, I have to keep up the regimen of avoiding too hot or too cold foods, no drinking through straws, etc., because of the pulled tooth, while at the same time I am supposed to get a lot of rest and self-care to help my body fight off whatever virus is causing those mouth ulcers.

Thanks to my husband’s insurance, today cost less than $13, and any work I need to get done in the future will be well within our budget.

Definitely a load off my mind!!

Then, thanks to the dentist costing so much less then I’d budgeted for, we splurged on the way home.  We picked up a big bag of black oil sunflower seeds for the birds, and a bag of deer feed.  We had another visit from our two prong buck this morning, and there was nothing there for him.  A couple of days ago, I’d put out the last of our bird seed.  The birds ate all the sunflower seeds and peanuts, and there was nothing left but the tiny seeds they don’t like.  Even as I was filling the hanging feeder outside, I could hear the birds getting all excited about it!

I look forward to seeing our deer visitor discover the food we left for him! :-)

The Re-Farmer