Achey Breaky Tooth

Debbie's been having a rough time with toothache recently which has been getting worse over the last few weeks. It started out as nothing more than a sensitive tooth, so we booked ourselves into the dentist for a checkup. The required treatment wasn't to be until July as our new dentist was off on holiday for a month.

Last week the sensitive tooth turned into excruciatingly painful tooth and I tried to get Debbie into the dentist earlier. They still couldn't offer us anything earlier than 3 weeks and by Friday Debbie could take no more so we rang NHS Direct. They promised an appointment somewhere that day and would call Debbie on her mobile to let her know.

Thing is, Debbie's phone has been playing up a bit and when they rang it didn't and went straight to answerphone. They didn't leave a number and Debbie hadn't got the NHS Direct number with her so called me.

I called our dentist to get the NHS Direct number but after explaining why I wanted it, Debbie had an appoint that afternoon!

I got a phone call late on Friday from a very tearful Debbie who just wanted to go home. It turned out that the offending tooth was cracked inside, this is what was causing all the pain. There wasn't any option but to have the tooth extracted, so out it came, but not without an almighty struggle.

After the anesthetic wore off the pain started to return but we hoped that would subside by morning.

Morning came but the pain was still there, pain killers seemed to do the trick so we set off to the coast as planned. Poor Debbie struggled through the day, popping pills and putting on a brave face as we explored Mablethorpe and Cleethorpes.

The pain was worse than ever on Sunday morning so we called NHS Direct again and after going through everything were instructed to go immediately to Accident & Emergency.

The hole where the tooth used to be was now sporting an abscess, Debbie had two options, go to see a specialist for more drilling or take antibiotics and a new cocktail of pain killers. Debbie opted for option 2, we left with 2 kinds of pain killers, antibiotics and a mouth wash.

The new drugs seemed to do the trick and the swelling and pain has been subsiding over the last couple of days. The course of antibiotics lasts until Friday by which time the hole formerly known as tooth will hopefully have healed completely.

Paul