The offending tooth is now out of my mouth and in a little manilla envelope that is currently on the washer. This all happened on Friday. I went in kind of scared and came out a little shock-y, that despite the extreme kindness shown by the dentist and her assistants. (Oh, and I followed the advice of KAH to observe my breathing without trying to control it. I wore my super noise-cancellation headphones. Those efforts both helped tremendously.)
One of the freakiest parts to me, at least, was how easy it is to take a tooth out if you know what you're doing. Shudder. Nothing like what you see in the Saturday morning cartoons.
I came away with some high-tech material stuffed into the empty space, apparently a good surface for the bone to attach to when it starts growing (which appeals to my geeky side). I felt like I got expert care and expert advice on after-care.
For the first hour after I got home, I was instructed to stay busy taking care of myself. For the rest of the day, I got almost nothing done. I felt like I went into a tiny depression with typical symptoms -- lack of focus, lack of interest, lack of energy. Then yesterday, I caught up a little with everything I was going to do on Friday, but I also took a three hour nap.
And today, we went to a party, and I started fading a few hours into it. So we came home and had dinner and here I am. Tomorrow, I go back to work.
The plan is to let this heal 1-2 months and then see the implant guy for a consultation. After the implant happens, I need to wait 4-6 months before I get the crown.
Then I'm done, unless, of course, some of the other cracked teeth advance so that they're beyond repair. I'll have some preventive work done on those teeth just before Thanksgiving and then cross my fingers.
I don't particularly recommend any of this; on the other hand, it's nice to know that there are trained professionals nearby, ones I would trust with this procedure, should I need it again.
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