Back from the dentist a little while ago, via the closest Sainsbury’s pharmacy. With a 10 day course of two antibiotics again!
When we went down there, it was supposed to be open, but the door was locked. Mr. C called the number, and it turned out the receptionist was gone and the dentist had popped out somewhere for a while. So we had about a 20 minute wait outside, thankfully with a park nearby to kill some time less stressfully with Pokemon Go.
Apparently there were no appointments scheduled right then, so she could work me in immediately. Glad we didn’t need to maybe wait until after the weekend, especially with him off today and able to go along.
But yeah, Old Dentist commented on how sick I looked pretty much immediately after we got in. Having the usual nasty cold + asthma cough besides the sore throat croaky voice aggravated again by infection drainage probably helped there. (More on that in a bit.) I think the rest of it may have decided to flare up worse with me coming down with a cold, and my already crappy diabetic immune system tied up that way. She agreed that sounded likely.
After a short examination and a quick x-ray, it turns out I apparently have necrotizing gingivitis in the socket, and probably a little pocket of leftover infection still further down.
Necrotizing ANYTHING is not necessarily what you want to hear, but at least it was followed by gingivitis and not osteomyelitis. The jawbone thankfully looked fine on x-ray. *fingers crossed* I was actually starting to worry about that, especially with the tooth in front of it acting up that much.
She also commented on the combination of swelling under the jaw and into the neck–with the infection obviously traveling downwards too–and the cough concerning her. She mentioned maybe seeing the GP for chest x-rays to be safe, several times, because I did strike her as really freaking sick today.
I also have the lung capacity for the kind of hellacious cough that tends to scare doctors and got me way too many unnecessary antibiotics as a kid. And this does just seem like the same old cold/asthma combo, with no sign of actual chest congestion so far. If that assessment changes, I may try to get it checked out. But for now, it’s more aggravating than worrying. I did pick up some Robitussin at the pharmacy too, to hopefully sleep better, but yeah.
She also commented that I never came in unless I was really having some kind of serious problem! (And if course suggested maybe that wasn’t ideal…) Which is kinda my assessment too, especially with the history of bad dental experiences. I avoid it as long as I can, as decently illustrated by going several years with an abscess and months sick afterward.
But, this time definitely seemed to qualify as serious in her books!
One of the things that got me, though, was that the inflammation is not nearly as bad now as the last time I tried to get some followup at New Dental Practice. Including under the jaw and into the neck; it was the same pattern but worse even before the extraction. But, only the one dentist I liked there who did the actual work under sedation acted remotely concerned about it, and not like I was wasting her time. It was really freaking weird.
So today, Old Dentist was pretty much flipping and trying to get me to go for chest x-rays, because possibly spreading dangerous infection. More of a relief than it should have been, to tell the truth.
In the end, I got the fairly long course of dual antibiotics again (metronidazole and erythromycin), plus instructions to do a lot of both saline and antiseptic mouth rinses. Also not to let my mouth dry out, because that can apparently make the problem worse. (So yeah, i have been having some trouble with dehydration. And I’m sure the constant higher glucose wash has also been helping keep the bacteria happy. :-|) Plus of course if it doesn’t start improving, come back.
Glad to finally get that dealt with, and hopefully I can start feeling less sick from the damned infection soon. Almost don’t want to get my hopes up too much with that, but yeah.
