Wednesday, October 11, 2006

This just may kill me dead

So last Tuesday, I had two wisdom teeth removed and another tooth repaired. The wisdom teeth were not bothering me, other than the fact that they were severely decayed, and I had to pick food out of the holes. Gross, I know. But they were causing no pain.

Until they were removed. The surgery itself went well - the oral surgeon numbed me up real well, and I wasn't in too much pain for the first two days. The Percocet and ibuprofen controlled the pain pretty well.

But then I ended up with dry socket. I went back to the surgeon on Friday. The only real treatment for dry socket is to pack it with gauze soaked in clove oil. Unfortunately, I am violently allergic to cloves - they make me blister and bleed, and it gets really nasty really quick. So no treatment for me. Just another prescription for Percocet.

I'm probably one of the two people on earth who gets an upset stomach from Tylenol, which is part of what is in Percocet. Tylenol and Oxycodone. Figures. So in addition to my mouth and jaw being in MASS QUANTITIES OF PAIN (at least ten times worse than giving birth), my stomach has been upset for the past week. Oh, and the Oxycodone makes me itchy. I'm just miserable all over. I feel like most of the solids in my diet come from pills. Blech.

Anyway, I went back to the surgeon for a simple checkup yesterday, and though he said all was looking good, clinically, I am still in mass quantities of pain. I guess having an exposed jawbone will do that to ya. He gave me a prescription for Vicodin this time, since the Percocet is making me itch. I guess comparitively, Percs are stronger, but when I compared the doses on a converter, the Vicodin I'm taking is the equivalent of two or three Percs. Maybe that'll help some.

Perhaps the worst part is that I have been sleeping like a baby since last Tuesday. I wake up every two hours in tears. Yay. Seriously, I don't sleep more than two hours without being awakened by the pain, and then I am up for at least another hour or two while more meds kick in. I am bloody exhausted.

He told me I could be looking forward to this kind of pain for another two weeks. Perhaps a month. Maybe longer.

Someone please shoot me.