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Yes I should've had it seen before now, but money for a bit was tight enough that even $185 was HUGE to have to spend, plus the pain hadn't "exploded" like this before. I have the money now, hence the appointment, but had it exploded like this earlier today, I'd immediately high-tailed it to any open dental place & probably gotten seen. What a HUGE rip-off for it to strike at NIGHT-TIME when they're closed.
Besides hating the prospect of waiting hours & hours at the ER, a person we know who is in fact a doctor at the ER has said to us in the past regarding this that they typically won't do anything anyway, so I'd likely be waiting hours for nothing. If the pain was as it was just barely 3-odd hours ago, just a little numb/sore & easily squashed for a period with OraGel or ibuprofen, it would be no big deal--as it is, it's a HUGE deal.
I guess the best I can do is take a slow cooker insert, fill it up with ice cubes, put it beside my bed & TRY to sleep, at least the ice cubes will be right there within reach & maybe I can get some "winks" in-between, and maybe I can call & they can see me earlier than 1:30 in the afternoon when I tell them it's gotten this awful.
LRH
Definitely call first thing to see if they can see you earlier tomorrow. This is the issue with waiting on dental infections. They always seem to blow up at night. No rhyme or reason. I am sorry you are in pain.
In the future, Don't wait to treat an infected tooth. It will ALWAYS cost you more in the long run.
The one thing I asked earlier--again, most dentists tend to do the song & dance of having you spend 2-odd weeks with antibiotics & pain killers before they pull it then, but I can't imagine ANYTHING they could give me that would clear this up enough to make it bearable for 2 weeks. From where I'm sitting it has EXPLODED to where NOTHING but pulling it is going to make it stop.
About 8 years ago I had a different tooth "blow up" on me during the daytime, & I showed up at a dentist and the agonizing way I was acting must've made an impression on them, they saw me IMMEDIATELY and pulled it within 5 minutes, and had me not forget to pay them back later (I did) vs making me pay then or else do nothing.
How do I type this with the pain? I have ice in my mouth, when I do, it hurts almost none at all. Once the ice melts, for about 2-3 minutes, it still feels fine, then suddenly "ARGH!!!!!" As for abscess, I understand the concern, my jaw however isn't swollen, any pain I've felt there, other teeth, or headaches etc on other occasions appears to be "relayed" pain.
The concern is that this may have esculated from a "tooth pain" to being a serious bone injury from an infection. the tooth region is just the outlet for the pain. If thats the case, a couple hundred dollars isn't going to do squat for a required surgical procedure. Good news is if it has infected the jaw bone or skull, it normally will switch from a dental procedure and payment to a possible medical procedure covered by your health insurance plan.
You obviously have a tooth infection, likely need a root canal or the tooth pulled if you can't pay for that. What happens if the nerve in the tooth begins to die but doesn't always die all the way. You get an infection in there and usually your tooth is very sensitive to heat as well as cold. It sounds like your nerve hard partially died and you had an infection, was given antibiotics, which kept it somewhat under control. Now it is too far gone for that. Usually unless it is an emergency they will not pull a badly infected tooth because the infection could spread and we are talking about your head. What they may do is drill a hole in the top of the tooth to releave the pressure and then get you back on antibiotics. This is the thing... this time when you are done with the antibiotics, get the tooth taken care of or it will be even worse the next time.
Well I made it, & the good thing is, it didn't keep me up. At one point I decided to let it go after the ice melted & see if thje pain would die down after a couple of minutes, in other words to see if it would "run its course" and then quit eventually, as it had the other nights. After a couple of minutes, it did, and as of this morning, with no pain medication or OraGel, it is free of pain (unless I chew too hard on it). Thus, I was able to get sleep vs constantly having a sandwich bag-enclosed ice cube in my mouth all night which I had to keep replacing as it melted (and have the melted water dripping all over the place, drooling etc).
So I got my sleep.
However, the appointment made, I'm going, I'm NOT going to go "oh, I'm fine now" and dismiss this. Not to worry, I'm GOING, nothing short of a heart attack or stroke is going to keep me from going & getting this handled.
I went to a different place than I had scheduled, since it was closer--I actually had gone there before last year. It was very much a "wham bam thank you ma'am" sort of thing, they took a quick X-ray of that very specific area, wrote a prescription for antibiotics, and I return in about 9 days to, presumably pull it.
There is no serious pain, nothing like what happened last night. Also, they stated they saw no evidence of any brain infections, although they said the bad tooth may in fact be abscess. In fact, they could tell it was the bad one (bottom molar) before even seeing any X-rays just by looking inside my mouth.
This other place down the road (not the one I initially had an appointment at) took X-rays all over my entire mouth some 3 months ago & pointed out all the affected areas, as well as writing a prescription for antibiotics & Vicatin. They didn't even charge me for that. The reason I haven't utilized them otherwise, as much as I appreciate it, is because their charges for other services are WAY higher, $180-200 for an extraction vs $120, for instance. It's as if they give you free X-rays with the idea that you'll more than make up for it later. I do appreciate, though, that they had me on antibiotics for awhile--however, I doubt they'd be willing to share the X-rays to other places.
The place I initially had an appointment at, Affordable Dentures, does a $100 consultation & then extractions are only $80 I believe. However, they're somewhat farther away & I wanted to get seen quickly, for obvious reasons. I may well use them later, though, because this place today, maybe I expected too much, but all they did was look at the one area I complained of pain, vs X-ray'ing everywhere to get an "overview." I was in & out in barely 5-10 minutes. But maybe that's normal? Or maybe the fact that it was obvious just by looking which tooth was bad & this caused them to not bother looking elsewhere for an overview? (Also, the Affordable Dentures place has better prices on partials, which I may get later if other molars have to be pulled down the road.)
What I don't get is this--what changed that all of a sudden, as of a mere 2 hours ago, the pain won't budge no matter what you do except for ice? Previously, I'd get a temporary surge of pain but after 5-10 minutes of it, it would subside to a more "numb" pain, easily dealt with via OraGel and even better, once pain killers kicked in, it hurt none at all for several hours? Just earlier today I went through 3-4 hours of no pain whatsoever.
What in the WORLD change all of a sudden, just like that? And why now, at night-time, vs during the day when I could've gone to a dentist and, upon them seeing the pain I was in, I could've been quickly seen, vs enduring this all freaking night long? Why, why, why?
LRH
Whether you want to believe it or not the tooth/root is abcessed and the pain will cycle until the tooth is removed or root is opened up and the infected pus comes out.
Try putting a bag of frozen peas on your jaw where it hurts, the peas mold to the shape of your face and the cold is concentrated better.
The ice/cold freezes the nerve which numbs the pain until it warms again, pain is always worse at night.
Relief from cold means heat is causing pain which means the nerve in the tooth is almost dead so it's been infected for a long while now. Pain usually happens at night because when you lie down more blood rushes to your head and feeds that infection. Guess what I do for a living? Your story is not uncommon.
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