I believe I mentioned how contented I was with life on my birthday; at least I think I did. Everything was going well I loved life, great job, good health, ect. I had been suffering from, what I assumed was one of my semi-frequent sinus infections and, having gone to the doctor, was given antibiotics to treat it. After two weeks my doctor gave me a second round of antibiotics because, even though there was no mucus, my sinus pain and pressure was still there. By the time that ran out, I was at the Jersey Shore where I would go through bouts of pain- sometimes in the cheek, other times in the jaw, and once a raging headache. Migraine medicine didn't help, sudafed either, and very little relief came from nasal spray.
Clearly this wasn't simply caused by a sinus infection and being a hypocondriac I considered my other options. Cancer, luckily was ruled out by the clean blood test results from my recent physical but what about noncancerous growths of the sinuses or brain. Or it could always be a wisdom tooth.
My whole life I have had flawless teeth, not so much as a cavity in a baby tooth, but it seemed possible and the dentist was the cheapest and most logical first specialist to attempt so last Friday I went to see him hoping that my wonderful teeth would have betrayed me and I would have an answer. With initial X-rays there was no sign of trouble and after a physical exam of my mouth the dentist still found nothing explaining that my perfect teeth should not lead to this pain. I began to panic and he explain that it could be a host of things including something pressing on the other end of the nerves (you know like a brain tumor!) or something curable by an ENT. However, since his 360 scan X-ray could show nostril and sinus passages he could see mucus if somehow an infection had managed to survive so long, he decided to do one.
Only after looking at the results of the 360 did he discover there was indeed an impacted wisdom tooth on the left side. He said that in his 4 decade career he'd never seen an impacted wisdom tooth that didn't at least show a bump in the jaw line or gum until he saw mine. My stupid tooth, following the formula of the rest of my teeth, must have lodged into my jaw perfectly. If this had been twenty years ago, I probably would have never found out it could have been the culprit. Yeah that's right could have because the scan also showed that I have sinus polyps on both sides. However since 1- there has been jaw pain 2- people on the internet often talk of lingering sinus trouble being solved by an extraction and 3- the polyps are on both sides but the pain is only on the left I decided to go for the extraction and today I did just that. I was given laughing gas and the actual procedure was very calm (although everybody I love has been trying to keep me calm which inadvertently was worrying me) and I felt so good afterwards, that I went and got my ears pierced. Now, however, the gas and other numbing agents have faded and there was about an hour where it felt like I gave birth through the mouth!!
The dentist says he hopes that this cures everything but that we can't be sure if I'll need the ENT visit or not. Let's all hope NOT I hate spending money and despise pain and worrying.
Thank you for your post.
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