Poor Jeffrey

Jeff went to the dentist yesterday. He's been having teeth pain for a while and since all my insurance changed with the new year, we figured we'd wait for that to kick in. Then we thought we'd wait until we got the cards for the dental stuff (still waiting). Then we thought we better just call them and get him in! They took an x-ray and told him exactly what he already felt was happening. He ended up having to have two teeth pulled!

On the bottom, he had a wisdom tooth that was tipped. It was pushing on the other teeth, making his jaw and whole head hurt. It was also starting to get a bit infected underneath it. Because it was tipping, it was also rubbing against a top tooth. The top tooth was half way gone! The part that was left had quite a cavity. When they pulled the top tooth, it broke a bit of his bone and they had to pull that out.

The dentist said he could recommend an oral surgeon and they could do root canals on both teeth to try to save them, but they usually didn't do that for a wisdom tooth. I guess they would do that so the top tooth wouldn't have a hole to rub into and cause some kind of the same problem on the bottom as he had on the top. My thought, and Jeff's too, was that there wasn't enough of the top tooth worth saving. Then what would they have to do!? And I've never heard anything good about root canals. Because they were in the back and wouldn't affect his smile :) and also because he didn't want to wait any more time and deal with pain, Jeff opted to have them both pulled.

I was there through the whole thing. Am I getting good mothering experience or what!? It's horrible to watch someone you love go through pain and discomfort and fear. I rubbed his ankles like my mommy always did for me when I went to the dentist. It was all over fairly quickly. Once again, I think the shots were the worst part for him.

When I went to bed last night, he said that all the pressure and pain in his jaw that he'd felt that morning was gone. Today he's sore, but at least it's recovering soreness and he should be better in a day or two.