ET's Info-Stew

Last night the numbing agent wore off and I had constant moderate pain. For some reason the Tylenol with codine didn't do jack, so I took some Ibuprofen. That stuff did the trick and now I'm a happy camper. My most painful times were when I had that stupid gauze in my mouth. I'm sure it's there to help with the clotting, but it caused so much pain. I took it off for good when the pain woke me up at 2am.

I've talked about all the bad parts of this whole thing: the dentist blocking my air passages during the extraction, the feeling like I need to spit, the pain caused by the gauze. But there is one problem that still remains and it's the worst of all. The feeling returned back to my face and mouth, all except the left half of my tongue, which is still completely numb nearly 24 hours later. I've done a little research and even talked to the dentist, and what happened is that the dentist damaged some nerves during the extraction. Apparently it's happens to a lot of people when they get wisdom teeth pulled. The feeling may return after days, weeks, or months, but it may also never come back. That has me worried because it's making my mouth very uncomfortable, and it's really easy to accidentally bite my tongue. It also causes me to slur my speech, especially my 'S's, even more.

Of course before the extraction, I signed a piece of paper saying I knew this could happen. And when I talked to the dentist this morning all he could say was "Sorry about that" and "Do you want to talk to an oral surgeon?". He was surprised when I told him because he didn't think he was working deep enough to have caused a problem. If it doesn't return on its own I will go talk to a surgeon. But we're moving in two days, so I don't have time to go through a surgery before we leave. So going to Dr. Wong was a mistake. For both Jenny and myself, any procedure more advanced than a cleaning has led to persistent pain and possible permanent damage.