Friday, August 20, 2010

The jaw saga continues

On Sunday, P had a work picnic. On the drive there, my tongue found a swollen spot over one of my implants which I examined in the mirror. It was a swollen bump obscuring the implant. The implant also was flopping around in the socket. Uh, oh I thought. That is what happened with the last one prior to coming out. On Monday I called the Oral surgery resident and he never got back with me. I convinced myself it was getting better on Tuesday. On Wednesday, I stopped by the clinic, but they couldn't see me. Thursday I called again and recieved an appointment for 3:30 pm. They took me in late which could be a problem since with traffic and exiting the parking garage I am an hour's drive from picking up V. Of course, the took me in late. My surgeon was in surgery and I saw yet another new fellow, completely new to my case.

He limped in on crutches, took a tweezer like instrument out, and plucked the implant out of my gum. It was fairly painless, but I heard the crunch of bone as it came out. While the last implant failure was painless and bloodless, this was bloody.Very bloody. I bit down on gauze to reduce the bleeding. THe fellow announced that he was going to irrigate the wound. Last time this was simple. This time, he found so much infection and necrotic tissue that he had to debride it. He scraped out the area right down to the bone. That too was relatively painless. But it smelled. And it tasted bad. And I could feel the tool scraping against the bone. THen I got dry heaves and starting vomiting.

The fellow felt that he should page my surgeon. That was in surgery. That was a bit worrisome. I was the lucky recipient of YET another course of antibiotics this time a double - Flagyl and Clindamycin. Then I went home.

I was devastated. I don't know what is going to happen next.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

for the love of god. when are you going to catch a break with this whole thing?????

this is the kind of thing that makes you want to play the lottery....or at least that is what i told myself when i kept "beating" the odds!

xx

MrsSpock said...

Oh man, that sounds awful. I hope the antibiotics stave off any more infection. I am in awe that removing the implant was actually painless- sounds like it should have really hurt!

Cindy said...

How traumatic! Keep us posted on how you are doing....

Julie said...

Oh Jen! That is just awful! :( I'm so sorry you're suffering this way. I will pray that this craziness ends and things improve for you asap. You're such a trooper! xoxo