In the words of my dentist, I "should have had that removed, like, yesterday".
For the Med students in the audience, you'll notice three interesting things. Firstly, the final molar has managed to rotate through about ninety degrees, which is fairly bad, and makes it a candidate for immediate removal. Second, the root of the tooth is beginning to impinge on the mandibular canal (the dark blue line), which contains all sorts of important things, like the inferior alveolar nerve. Basically, if the tooth gets forced any further back, WORLD OF PAIN. Thirdly, if you look closely at the light blue box, you can see that the rotated tooth is beginning to force its way under the next molar, and is actually causing the anterior tooth to degrade.
The obvious thing to do is get it yanked out, and given that I'll probably get a general anaesthetic, yank the other three out too, because all they're going to do is get annoying. Because of the proximity to the nerve, my dentist TURFed me an Italian maxillofacial surgeon in South Perth.
But here's the thing. In order to get a consult with this guy, I have to wait until mid-October - and the receptionist said if I couldn't make that time then it would be November. The joys of the closed medical labour market! A month and a half's lead time is not something that anyone would sneeze (aha) at. A bit of nitrous oxide, some power tools, and then all I have to do is get the hole in that penultimate molar filled.
(I'm not actually stressing out, because this is a fairly common sort of condition, and apparently will get worse quite slowly. Pretty neat, really.)
3 comments
Davyd :: Friday, September 2nd
I should find my OPGs. I had three impacted wisdom teeth and an odomtome (sp?). They were taken out under general anesthetic.
They don't fill up the hole, just stitch you back up. You then have to flush the empty sockets out with saline all the time to stop them getting infected. Eventually bone (or cartilidge or whatever it is) grows back and you don't have empty sockets any more.
Nat :: Friday, September 2nd
I say turn yourself in to OCHWA and ask to be a "trial model" :)
but your tooth does look royally screwed *comforts*
hey, after my two years of braces, i deserve better teeth goddamn it!
Lyall :: Saturday, September 17th
"TURFed" I must read that book.
If your blog lets me comment it will be a miracle.
