Monday, September 03, 2007

A long weekend shot to hell

Well, I didn't mention it yet, but after the C'Dude ride, the roof of my mouth started getting mighty uncomfortable. Starting shortly after I got to the college to hang out with my wife, pain came and went in ebbs and flows all the way through Friday night. It felt like pressure in the roof of my mouth, so I assumed it was a minor sinus infection, probably brought on and irritated by the cool night air and a weakened immune system from exerting myself so much. I treated it as such.

By Saturday morning, there were no ebbs and flows. Just varying degrees of pain ranging from really painful to intolerable. It was now that I'm realizing what's happening. My broken tooth is probably dying and getting abscessed. For 15 minutes at a time, the pain would spike to the point where my body would start to get symptoms of shock. Tunnel vision, increased heart rate, shallow breathing, flushed and clammy skin, etc. I spent most of Saturday cowering under the covers. I took an old Tylenol 3 that I had laying around. No dice. I took two six hours later to be given only slight reprieve from my suffering. By Sunday morning, I was running a fever of 102*F. My upper lip, nose, eyes, and cheeks were getting puffy. I finally managed to get the pain, fever, some of the tenderness and most of the swelling in my face under control with a double-dose of Ibuprofen. My fever still goes up and the pain (but not swelling or tenderness) gets worse when the stuff wears off, so I have to stay on top of the dosage.

I called 3 different "emergency" dentist lines this weekend and haven't gotten a call back from any of them. I need a root canal, and quick. Stupid holiday weekends.

Anyhow, this really came out of nowhere. No annoying sensitivity or anything that feels like a cavity on my broken tooth. I brush the broken surface at least 3 times a day when I brush the rest of my teeth, and I've never had any shooting pain or sensitivity to it. Just WHAM and instantly it became infected for no apparent reason.

Yesterday, I was able to keep the symptoms at bay long enough to enjoy about 6 miles on Turkey Creek Trail with my wife. I'm feeling better (but a little but like an Advil junkie) today since I've been keeping a constant flow of drugs into my system. This sucks really bad. I'm going to go ahead and hit up my usual Monday night ride.

I called my boss and told him I'm taking tomorrow off. Hopefully, some dentist in town will look at me and fix me up. This is getting ridiculous.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

By strange coincidence, I've got a regularly scheduled dental appointment tomorrow. With any luck, though, I'll get a clean bill of health and be out of there quick.

amidnightrider said...

Take care. Tooth aches are probably the worse pain there is. But you kinda know that right?

Chuong Doan said...

Get it pulled- screw the root canal, etc. That way you can start riding as soon as you get home and save the deductible for more biking gear.

Apertome said...

Man, that really sucks! I'm sorry to hear about your tooth, I hope you get it fixed and get back in the saddle soon.

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