OK, so if you have been around me at all in the last week you will know that I have been suffering from a very sore jaw. This happens to me periodically where my jaw tightens up and clenches during the night. Usually I treat with heat and ibuprofen.
Until now, this time the pain lasted through the weekend so I called my dentist first thing Monday morning. He called in an Rx for a muscle relaxer and told me to continue to heat and use ibuprofen. Well, I did that, but the jaw continued to be in constant pain and now started to swell – people at work started calling me ‘Chippy”. So I called the dentist again, who now wanted to see me.
In I go for what I think is a little appointment about my jaw and clenching. Not so fast – once he saw my jaw and looked at an x-ray – he felt that all of my issues may be due to an infection somewhere. He said he could prescribe me an antibiotic, but that he wanted a second opinion before I did that – so he called a collegue and sent me on my way to my second dentist visit of the day. Have I mentioned I hate the dentist?
So I go over to the other dentist – and since I am an ER visit – I am just being worked in. So I sat there for an hour and a half, finally getting back to see the dentist and he concurs. He thinks that it is an infection and he actually thinks that it is infected in a salivary duct – from Merck:
There are three major pairs of salivary glands in the mouth. The largest pair of salivary glands, called the parotid glands, lies just behind the angle of the jaw, below and in front of the ears…
which explains why my jaw has been bothering me. Or it means that I now have to have my wisdom tooth on my right side pulled. I should know more by Monday, if the antibiotics are working and the swelling goes down, then it was the salivary duct – if the swelling goes down, but I continue to have pain in the back tooth region then it is the wisdom tooth.
Have I mentioned before how much hate mouth issues and the dentist in general…what a day, what a day…
** From the movie Grease
