Modern Medicine

Yesterday I spent my morning at the oral surgeon having half a wisdom tooth removed. Today I am singing praises about modern medicine and how little pain I have compared to what it would have been like 30-years ago. Everyone talks about how much computers have evolved in a relatively short amount of time. I think medicine comes close.

So why only half a tooth? When I first had my wisdom teeth reviewed for removal over 30 years ago, they didn't need to come out. As I continued to get dental check-ups, I could see the root of one tooth getting more and more entangled with a major nerve in my jaw. Removing the tooth could damage the nerve and as it didn't impact any other teeth, I left it in. Then as luck would have it, I developed an abscess near that non-impacted wisdom tooth necessitating its removal. After talking with my oral surgeon, he suggested only removing the infected part and leaving the roots. Now of course the roots may need to come out later but not right now.

I got home from the surgery yesterday and had no pain whatsoever. They gave me a time-release version of Novocaine that lasted all day. The only downside is that I spent the day looking like a stroke victim as I couldn't really control one side of my face. I didn't mind as I didn't plan to see anyone except my wife and she frequently sees me at my worst.

I am not a fan of opiates to help control pain and opted to go with the new super painkiller on the market: Tylenol mixed with Advil. New research is showing that taking the two over-the-counter medications is more effective than either by themselves even in stronger doses. This is a fairly recent development and I have to confess it works very well.

Anyone who has ever done a lot of yard work or exercised especially hard knows that the worst day for muscle pain is 2 days later. My surgeon told me to expect the most painful day to be tomorrow and not just the day after surgery. Today I am not too concerned as I feel relatively pain free. I am making sure to keep up on my Advil/Tylenol mix as well as using ice packs about every hour. We'll see how tomorrow goes.

When I found out I needed to have half a tooth removed, the surgeon made a comment that recovery would be more difficult at my age now than if I was 20. My thought is that medicine has evolved to the point where I am glad I had half a tooth removed today instead of a full tooth 30 years ago. I'm sure I am doing better as an old man than I would have as a young one way back when.

Computer at the Dentist

Last week I broke a crown. I hate to admit that one of my teeth is covered in a porcelain shell, but it is true. I guess all that candy I ate as a child eventually caught up to me.

I immediately called a friend that is a dentist as I was out of town and needed to know if I had to take care of it soon or if it could wait until I saw my regular dentist in Utah. As the exposed tooth wasn't that sensitive, I was fine. Yesterday I met with my dentist and the crown replacement was a modern miracle.

In the past, crowns were a two-visit process. First they put in a temporary crown and you had to be careful how you ate for three weeks while the permanent crown was being fabricated from an impression they took of the original tooth. When the new crown came in, it was back to the dentist for another day of drooling because of a numb mouth.

This time, the dentist removed my busted up old crown and then took a picture of the remaining tooth. He used a 3-D computer program to design a new crown to fit over the tooth. There was a bit of shaping to make sure it fit between the adjacent teeth. Once the tooth was designed, he electronically sent the specifications to the lab (conveniently located in his basement). The lab machined a new crown out of a block of porcelain and it was ready 10 minutes later. I then had the new crown gently placed in my mouth to make sure it was a perfect fit. There was a bit of fine tuning the dentist was able to do with his drill and then it was sent back to the lab for polishing. 20 minutes later, the new crown was cemented in my mouth and I was good to go.

The whole process took a total of about 2 hours. Most of that time, the dentist was working with other patients. It killed part of my morning but was well worth the wait. I don't have to go back and that has me singing praises. After all, who likes to visit the dentist?