further dental adventures
Jun. 9th, 2009 09:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fleaI went to the very nice oral surgeon for a consult and came away with plans to have my wisdom teeth (all 4) out next Tuesday. Um. (So, Hec, perhaps lunch downtown is not so much an option.) They have prescribed me valium for night before and morning of; I am not sure whether or not this is customary, or they could tell from my wild-eyed look that I was sure as hell going to need it.
(Shall I note, in passing, that former bad dentist proposed to take my wisdom teeth out under local anaesthetic in his office? Apparently by brute force. One shudders to think. I mean, my wisdom teeth are erupted and look decent, but the oral surgeon says you never know for sure until you're in there, and often even erupted teeth have root complications and so forth that require actual incisions.)
My ongoing complete mental breakdown about my teeth is, well, ongoing. I'm still keeping it together, mostly (although I did agree to an appointment without remembering the lunch date and afternoon meetings I had penciled in), but after the appointment I couldn't face going back to work (also it was 90 degrees and a half-hour walk) and so purchased root beer, potato chips, and Cherry Garcia and devoured them, then napped heavily. I'm having a hard time with the fact that I'm having such a hard time with all this; I am now happy with my new dentist, and the oral surgeon seemed very good too, and I'm using fucking Listerine daily to counteract the beginning signs of gingivitis - I should be starting to feel better about it all, damn it. And yet this afternoon I was seriously worried that the teeth were only the first step, and in a few years I was going to end up unable to leave the house and subsisting on organic free-range bananas or some other elaborate form of Not Coping With Life. (Let us conveniently ignore my pre-existing major non-copage, the lack of driving thing.)
My self-image is all about the competence and matter-of-factness and coping. When I have to work this freaking hard to barely cope, I start freaking out.
(Shall I note, in passing, that former bad dentist proposed to take my wisdom teeth out under local anaesthetic in his office? Apparently by brute force. One shudders to think. I mean, my wisdom teeth are erupted and look decent, but the oral surgeon says you never know for sure until you're in there, and often even erupted teeth have root complications and so forth that require actual incisions.)
My ongoing complete mental breakdown about my teeth is, well, ongoing. I'm still keeping it together, mostly (although I did agree to an appointment without remembering the lunch date and afternoon meetings I had penciled in), but after the appointment I couldn't face going back to work (also it was 90 degrees and a half-hour walk) and so purchased root beer, potato chips, and Cherry Garcia and devoured them, then napped heavily. I'm having a hard time with the fact that I'm having such a hard time with all this; I am now happy with my new dentist, and the oral surgeon seemed very good too, and I'm using fucking Listerine daily to counteract the beginning signs of gingivitis - I should be starting to feel better about it all, damn it. And yet this afternoon I was seriously worried that the teeth were only the first step, and in a few years I was going to end up unable to leave the house and subsisting on organic free-range bananas or some other elaborate form of Not Coping With Life. (Let us conveniently ignore my pre-existing major non-copage, the lack of driving thing.)
My self-image is all about the competence and matter-of-factness and coping. When I have to work this freaking hard to barely cope, I start freaking out.
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no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 01:58 am (UTC)(In addition to the Valium, which, take it a good hour beforehand, I've used some vaguely self-distract-y, self-hypnosis-y mental exercises that have worked to keep the blood pressure down. Like counting to 10 really slowly over and over while thinking about nothing but the number -- or, if you're me, while thinking about nothing but the fact that you're supposed to think about the number and you're not doing that. That worked fine, during my wisdom teeth -- right up until they couldn't get the needle into a vein on the first try. But then the benzo kicked in and I remember nozzing till an hour later.)
no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 04:23 am (UTC)Though I had my wisdom teeth (all two of them; the other two never showed up) out with a local, because I had a meeting scheduled for that night that was subsequently canceled (fuckers). It's manageable, it really is. You can do it.
p.s. Although I often can't or don't leave my house for days at a stretch, so I am perhaps not the greatest fount of coping advice.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 04:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 04:53 am (UTC)I wanted to say, though, that I think we all have some area of our life in which we just don't cope as well as we think we should. As these things go, teeth seems like a pretty harmless thing to freak out about.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-11 02:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-11 07:22 am (UTC)Good luck with it, and eat as much Cherry Garcia as you can. In case it helps, I will relate that at the dentist's, I usually pretend really, really hard that I am a tomato plant, and that allows me to somewhat ignore the whole drill in my mouth thing.