appointments

Lots of dental/mouth appointments during winter break this year - on the first Monday of break I'm sneaking in for a cleaning - I have so much metal/ rubber on my teeth I'm not sure what they'll be able to accomplish, but at least they can start chipping away some of the grime (ew!). I hate the feeling of my teeth ever since surgery - I just can't get them clean! And I know they were concerned about buildup especially in the rear of my mouth where I still struggle to clean - I floss, but I'm not sure I'm getting everything because I can't open my mouth wide enough to see inside of there, and I also don't have much feeling back there yet. I'm a bit worried about having my mouth open - but it seems it's not getting any better any time soon, so I might as well quit waiting and getting cavities :)

Also, later into break I've got the rest of my root canal appointment, which ought to be a real fantastic time - at least with that appointment comes valium and percocet (don't worry, my husband is driving me!). PLUS I'm calling my surgeon tomorrow to 1) figure out this insurance crap and 2) make an appointment to get my joint looked at again.

So... insurance stuff. I had to make a 1,000 dollar payment last week because my account was going into default. Can I just say that I have NO IDEA why they're still billing ME?! Shouldn't it all go to my district - the district that agreed to pay for my surgery? And they're being REALLY SLOW with the purse strings apparently, so I've got to make payments until then. And, well, we don't exactly have thousands of dollars laying around. Augh, to say the least.

I have a good feeling about physical therapy this week - I feel like I might get to 21 popsicle sticks! The last two nights 20 hasn't been excruciating. I think that doing the exercises 3 times a day instead of 2 times is improving things, too - it seems like the therapy exercises aren't such a 'shock' to my jaw when I do them more often (my sessions in the morning and afternoon are shorter than my evening session). And the heat, again, REALLY helps. I ice only after my evening marathon session. I didn't do as much as I should have over the weekend (I'm stressed to the max and didn't even think about it - I even forgot to brush my teeth one night, I fell asleep in my chair with my laptop on my lap!) and my jaw was hurting pretty badly by yesterday - but with three sessions of therapy we're back!

Since I'm in blogging mode - let's do a full update. Since the new rubberbands up front my teeth are meeting almost perfectly - I ate salad tonight without too much trouble! Sometimes my teeth on the right side hit before the left, but I'm sure that will work itself out.

Numbness - Like I mentioned before, many of my teeth/ upper gums are pretty numb still. I have feeling, it's just slow. My chin is coming back like crazy this month - it itches for no reason, tickles, when I brush my fingers over the skin it tingles - whoo hoo! My lips are almost back completely. (bummer, as a clarinet player). I guess my cheeks still have some numb spots. The weird thing is, is I don't even notice the numbness anymore unless I test for it. It used to bother me - kind of felt like wax was dried on my skin all the time. But now I don't really notice it.

I think that's it! Minus the ROM and possibly displaced disk on the right side, things are good. And I have faith that things will get better after a long talk with Dr. Lee. Goodnight, everyone!