Sink or Swim

So I was at my girlfriend’s house and met her younger sister for the first time. I guess this is getting serious as I’ve never really responded to family dinners and what not. What can I say, I like her.

Her mom’s a great cook. She’s part Hispanic, too so, you can just imagine the sumptuous goodness of the dinner I had. Everything went just fine until I asked for some bread. Then my girlfriend started snickering. I asked her what it was about and she whispered to her younger sister and then her sister nodded and made some sort of approval.

As it turns out, her sister used to fear bread. That’s right, bread. Made of flour, that one you put in the oven. I’ve never met anyone who’s feared something as strange as bread. BREAD for crying out loud. So, I thought of writing this one. I want to know what you fear and I want to know if there’s anyone in the world that can top that phobia. I’ve googled it, and nothing’s come out so far.

I feared clowns. Not original, I know.

I’m sorry, why do I have to keep writing about teeth – it almost looks as if I’m obsessed about it, but I just can’t help but think about the millions of people who’ve gone thru so much trying to live with this natural phase in their lives.

I just found out that I didn’t have to get rid of my impacted molars. People back in the day didn’t have to bother themselves trying to get rid of their teeth, why do we have to, all of a sudden? I know there are a million possibilities to what could happen with someone who doesn’t have his/her tooth taken out, but then again that’s according to the dentists these days and some are refuting them for the only reason why this study ever took place – in fact, some say it’s a complete waste of time and funds.

But to be a little fair to our dentist friends and potentially aching selves, I do think about trying to stop myself from having an infection and/or a tumor due to the said impacted molars, hence having them extracted. There were just a few things I did not know. All I had were stories of the pain that took some people 3 days to recover from, while I took a week of intense pain. I had forgotten the fact that pain is indeed subjective, and I had also let the fact slip that I am not the best at toothache or anything that could cause headaches and the like. You can pretty much cut me open and expect me to blog about it, but do NOT touch my teeth.

I have belittled the activity a little too much that I did not do any research until I started getting worried of the ridiculous amount of pain I have faced at the time after the extraction. The process of extraction is more complicated than you might know. They cut the gum through, and divide the tooth into four pieces, pull out those they can, and smash the remaining tooth within, in your mouth. The pressure is a lot for one’s jaws sometimes that it might hurt longer than it should. The swelling can get pretty bad, and if done incorrectly, can damage a nerve or two. This can cause a splitting headache that may not go away after another procedure – something more delicate that involves the nervous system.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t have it taken out, because if you really feel the need to, then I guess you must, especially if it is hurting really bad. But there are possible repercussions to having this procedure that if you don’t take the precautions seriously, you just might find yourself in a situation much worse than you had expected.

There are a few things in life that you should be heavily thrifty about, but when it comes to medical concerns, especially the teeth, one should refrain from thinking twice about spending a little more than the average. I guess I should’ve considered spending a few more hundred bucks for a dentist that would ensure a good procedure and post procedure effects. Mine was unfortunately sub-standard the first time, and I could’ve done it without that much pain, I just didn’t choose to check out my other options. So that’s a lesson learned. I can’t say that perhaps next time I should consider paying tri
ple than what I had shelled out – because I’ve ran out of teeth to take care of.