Adventures In Fang Repair

Fillings a-go-go!

I didn't get lost on the way to the dentist's office this time, and the actual appointment took about twenty minutes from start to finish. The modern anaesthetic needle didn't hurt nearly as bad as the giant spikes they used to use when I was a kid, and the assistant brought me a mirror so I could see the drilled holes before they got filled in. it was kind of awesome. The fillings themselves are tooth-colored and I'm hoping I can get the amalgam ones that have fallen apart removed and replaced with similar ones on Unka Sam's dime.

The whole drive home I played with my dead lip. Even now I can't feel my face from temple to chin.

This calm adventure has been brought to you by Zoloft, makers of "Holy shit, I was able to leave the house alone!" and other fine products.

Dental Insanity III: The Scrapening

So it turns out a lot of what I thought was below-gumline tooth decay was actually just twelve years of buildup turning the edges of my teeth funny colors.



Not the best shot, as I (the dumbass) didn't take a shot this morning before leaving the house. But you get the idea. All my teeth are blended together in the before but become separate entities in the after.

Having the stuff scaled off was pretty traumatic, but it'll never be that brutal again. I'll be going back in December for my first regularly scheduled 6-month cleaning.

How like life this cleaning appointment was. I've lived so long in a haze of confusion and incompetence, surrounded by trouble and setbacks and too terrified to confront my fear because it might turn out to be more than I can handle. And then that all gets scraped away, and find out that underneath the buildup I'm actually pretty fortunate. Not to say I don't have problems, just that they are nowhere near as bad as the time I spent running from the unknown. The anticipation was vastly worse than the reality.

Next step: Dog needs a booster for his distemper, I need a shrink consult so I can deal with the anxiety that has put me in such a quagmire, and I have to fill out a tax return for last year's A-Kon because I just got a letter from Texas charging me an arbitrary $100. Since I didn't make anything, I can get that back as a refund, but I can't keep fucking off or it will get more expensive.

Above everything else: replace my tablet! Because there's never so much on my plate that art can't come first.

Dental Insanity II

TOOTH DECAY USES 'Rot and Sorrow'

LUKA'S 'RFLECT' BOUNCES 'Rot and Sorrow' back!

DENTAL HYGEINIST USES 'X-Ray':

'X-Ray': WOM WOM WOM WOM

TOOTH DECAY: 9999

*poof*

=fanfare=

GOT 1000 EXP
GOT 100 GIL
LUKA HAS LEVELED UP
LUKA HAS LEARNED 'IMPACTED WISDOM TOOTHGA'
LUKA HAS LEARNED 'CLEANING APPOINTMENT AT NOON TOMORROW'

So yeah, apparently not going to the dentist for 12 years has given me the equivalent of six months' worth of accumulated crap and tooth decay. No cavities. No cracks, diseases or polyps. I don't have anything that needs immediate attention, and even the fillings that flaked a decade ago are still in good condition.

I usually only remember to brush once a day, so all of this came as a huge fucking surprise.

We were done so far ahead of schedule that the dentist remarked that it was a pity he hadn't scheduled the cleaning on the same day as the exam, but he thought after reading my file that it would be much worse.

I told him and the hygeinist how my personal expectations for the visit had included multiple root canals, a jaw removal and my potential death and they had a good laugh at my noobish good fortune.

I do have two troublesome wisdom teeth, one of which is impacted and needs to come out. The other is just chillin' but he suggested extracting it at the same time because it's a very stupid tooth and nobody even likes it. If so, I'm keeping it for a necklace. There aren't any on my lower jaw at all, as it turns out.

No need to set aside funds for dental care in the immediate future, you say? Well well.

HELLO CINTIQ, HERE I COME!

My Teefs Is Broken

I've been beefing up my dental hygiene routine by making sure the last thing I do before bed every day is floss. This has been working out pretty well for me since I have a battery-powered gizmo that does most of the work, and I do not want to lose my teeth. I have what could probably be diagnosed as a full-on phobia of tooth-related trauma. If I don't brush, I have nightmares about my teeth getting loose and coming out in slow motion, which is a perverse but excellent source of motivation.

That said, I bet you already know where this entry is going.

A few minutes ago I was going through my floss routine while watching some Battlestar Galactica, when I hit a snag between my front lower teeth. I've been pretty scared of the possibility of decay below the gumline since it usually feels rough between those two teeth and the floss sometimes catches, but having no insurance makes it a lot easier to hope the problem goes away on its own, so that's exactly what I've been doing to combat the problem.

This time that snag was more pronounced than before, and when I guided the floss back out, it caught up on something for a second. It came free, and then all of a sudden there were hard little pieces of grit in my mouth.

I spat them out in my hand for a closer look and one of them was shiny on one side. FUCK.

So I totally panicked and went whining to the roomies with my tooth-chunks and fear, and the general consensus was that my enamel has deteriorated and I need a dentist.

Jesse asked me when I had my last appointment with a dentist. I told him 1996. He said that's probably why my mouth is falling apart.

NOOOOOOOO! Postive thinking and mouthwash, you have betrayed me!

Meanwhile, my problems sleeping have made me fucking useless. I blew last week's update for the protest, and this one I basically sleep-walked through in a daze of exhaustion. How I envy people who have functioning circadian rhythms. My weekly battle with the infamous slow-creeping schedule flip means I rarely have any sense of time or continuity, and my work suffers the consequences. It's hard to get any usable ideas out of a head that's only half-awake, so if I'm not sleeping right, I'm probably not working either.

Maybe having to do 200 commissions to pay for dental repairs will stabilize things a bit, but I may end up having to buy an alarm clock and setting it so it'll alert me when it's bedtime every night.

(PS: Oh God oh God please don't let my teeth fall out)

Help Fix Rachel's Wonky Mouth!

Keffy linked me to this, and I'm throwing it up here to show some love and solidarity for a fellow webcomicker in a fix.

I know too well what it's like to be a self-employed comic artist with dental care that gets neglected due to financial constraints--but at least my jaw isn't falling apart, and the fillings I probably need won't cost $25,000.

Dental Insanity

For the past five days, swallowing has been painful on the right side of my throat. At first I thought it must be a tonsil infection (I'm prone to them) but today I went poking around in my mouth and discovered that the soreness is located behind the molars on my upper right side of my mouth, where the gum meets the hinge of the jaw. Which is right where the wisdom tooth that never quite erupted would be.

I was really hoping it might be some kind of abrasion or canker sore from over-enthusiastic brushing, but my optimism fades as the pain increases. I've had similar pain, off and on, for a few years now, but it was never a big deal until this time. The last thing I need right now is some strange person sticking needles in my face and pulling out my teeth, but Dr. Google says the symptoms I'm having are fairly standard for a wisdom tooth infection.

NOoooOOoooOOoo~~~