My Commonplace Book

I am so lucky to have found a great dentist! It was really just by chance. I hadn't gone to a dentist in years because of my rampant, uncontrollable dentaphobia. When I realized I was going to lose all my teeth if I didn't do something, I tried a new dentist with absolutely horrible results. After I recovered from that experience, I tried this practice -- the only other one in the area that took my insurance. And for a rare change, fortune smiled on me. Everyone there is wonderful. Even after they dropped my insurance company a few years ago, I couldn't imagine changing dentists.

Now that I have my braces off, things are starting to happen. I had a visit a few days ago with my general dentist, Dr. S, who determined that I need at least four crowns, and six would be better. But before I have the crowns made I need to have tooth whitening done. But when I had gum surgery five years ago I had to use an antibiotic rinse that stains the teeth. I don't want teeth the color of Frosty the Snowman -- stark white teeth look artificial to me. All I want are the traditional "pearly whites." But mine are the color of antique pearls, and everyone I've asked urges me to do the whitening, including Dr. S. The whitening needs to be done before the crowns so the crowns can be made to match.

But there are so many methods -- which one to use? I was all for the Zoom system because it gets it overwith all at once and because I can't do overnight trays -- I don't have my retainers on long enough as it is because I have to wear my nightguard when I sleep. It's extremely expensive -- the regular price is $600! There was a poster up in the hygienist's office last winter advertising a special offer of $450, but I still had my braces at that point. Cathie said she was sure Dr. S would give me that price when I was ready, so I asked him about it, and he said he would.

BUT ... he wasn't in favor of that system for me, and now I know the reason -- or at least part of the reason. He discussed some others, including that I would have to have all this stuff on for 1½ to 2 hours straight -- it's uncomfortable and it's anxiety provoking because I'd have no control -- I wouldn't be able to talk or move. Even though I know from researching the Zoom method that it's a big profit center for dentists, he's pushing me away from it because he knows me well enough to know that I wouldn't do well with it.

But it gets better. Instead, he wanted to do impressions to make a fitted tray, and have me do the two-week at home bleaching. He said instead of overnight I could just do it four hours a day -- two in the morning and two in the evening, and still wear my nightguard overnight and my retainers the rest of the time ... and it's only $300 instead of $450.

So he took the impressions, and said he'll give me the trays and some of the peroxide and let me try it for a few days and see how it goes. And if I felt I couldn't handle it, he wouldn't charge me!!!

That is absolutely astounding. He knows money is an issue for me, and that offer is beyond generous. Making the impressions took his time, and ordering the trays will cost him money, but if I can't use them I won't have to pay for them, and we can explore other methods or decide to just skip it. I've never had a dentist that cared so much about his patients!

This is why my dentaphobia is currently at a lower level than it's ever been in my entire life.

My periodontist, Dr. F, decided last week not to do gum surgery that he had planned on doing, but originally he had told me he does sedation dentistry now, and that he would speak to Dr. S about doing his work at the same time, so I could just go to sleep for awhile, and when I woke up all my dental work would be finished. That sounded like heaven to me! Now that the gum surgery isn't happening, I asked Dr. S about sedation dentistry and just doing all four (or six) crowns at once. He said, "I've never done it, but I'm willing to give it a try. I'll talk to Dr. F about it."

This office doesn't have the facilities for it -- it would mean going to another office. It's only about ten minutes away, so for me it's not much of a difference, but for him it would mean leaving his office and going to another office where he doesn't normally practice, and just be a huge disruption to his day. But he's willing to do it if it will make the procedure easier for me!

We still have to talk about how many crowns, and whether to do them in one visit with sedation (which would mean a significant extra charge because an anesthetist does the sedation), or in two visits or four visits. The tradeoff between two and four is whether I can stand spending two hours straight in the chair in order to halve the anxiety of getting ready for each visit and finding someone to drive me so I can take my Valium.

But I'm just blown away by his kindness. My first dental work was 50 years ago, and it's taken this long to find a dentist who makes me feel comfortable. I just hope he takes good care of his health so he can continue practicing for a long time to come!

My braces are being removed tomorrow!!!!

There's so much else going on that I haven't even had time to think about it! They've been on for 3½ years, and they're FINALLY coming off!

When I do think about it my dentophobia revs up. The brackets are glued to my teeth, so each one of them has to be pried off, and something has to be done to my teeth to get the rest of the glue off. The edges of my teeth are going to be filed down to make them even, and I'm extremely worried about that -- the orthodontist insists it won't hurt because he's not going near the nerve, but he doesn't know me and my teeth. Between the dentophobia and the fibromyalgia, they're extremely sensitive. Then the retainers have to be fitted, and I don't know how that will feel. The ortho says it will be a little uncomfortable at first but I'll get used to it ... and when a dental professional says something will be "uncomfortable" it usually means it will hurt!

At least I can take them off to eat ... and for pictures! My teeth are somewhat discolored from the antibacterial rinse I had to use after my gum surgery, so they're not nice and white -- but at least they won't look blotchy gray, which is the way the braces make them look in most pics. (I've photoshopped a couple of photos to fix that  -- I don't mind being photographed with braces on my teeth, but they don't come out looking like teeth with braces on, they come out looking like blotchy gray teeth!)

The next step is to get my teeth whitened. I think I need some more crowns, so I need to get the whitening done first so the crowns can be made the right color.

I've been pretty relaxed for the past three years. My anxiety was very high when I was first getting the braces, but once I settled into the routine of going in every four weeks for an adjustment, I knew what to expect and I knew it wouldn't be painful, so I was okay. Now I'm really nervous -- about tomorrow, but also because getting the braces off means I finally have to confront having the rest of the work done that's been in abeyance. At least my periodontist has told me that he does sedation dentistry now, so he's going to put me out when I have the gum surgery done, and it helps to know that.

But I'm excited to be finally getting rid of these damn braces!

I got a couple of nudges the other day. It made me feel really good that my absence was noticed! Thank you, caring friends! (You know who you are.)

I have been soooo busy since the week of Thanksgiving -- I didn't realize it had been that long since I posted! Just to fill you in ...

( Recap of what I've been up to )

On top of all that, one of the three moderators of my 2,800-member freecycle group quit abruptly just before Thanksgiving with no notice, so I've had to spend a lot more time on that! Three mods wasn't enough for a group of that size -- even a very good group, as this one is. Now two is ridiculous! We desperately need to replace her, but I just don't have the time to recruit and train someone, so I'm stuck in a real catch-22! That's been taking up huge amounts of time (except on Sunday and Monday, when I had to let my poor co-mod do it all -- I knew he would, he's wonderfully reliable).

Tomorrow I have an acupuncture appointment in the morning, and then I have to drive up to somewhere north of Baltimore to have my mammogram and an abdominal ultrasound. The mammo is routine, but my GYN found something she wasn't sure about when she did my exam. I wanted to get them both done at the same time, but the facility near me didn't have an open mammo appointment until February. Since I'm already late, I was anxious to get it done sooner, so when she said I could go up there and get both done together in mid-December, I grabbed it.

But I can't find my damn referral, so I'll have to call the GYN office first thing in the morning and beg them to quickly write another one for me immediately, then stop by there to pick it up before going to my acupuncturist's office. (Of course the GYN office is in the opposite direction!) Then after my needling I'll find my way to Timonium and drink my water on the way. (=ugh= Well, at least the ultrasound is first, so I can pee before the mammo!) I have to remember to bring the water with me in the morning!

I'd like to go to the bird club meeting in the evening, but I'll have to wait till the time comes to see if I can make it after all that running around.

So now you know why I haven't been posting -- or reading anyone else's posts, either. I've been trying to keep up with a few posts here and there, but I haven't been able to, and I feel bad that I've missed to much. I know there are important things going on in some of your lives, but I don't know if I can ever make up three weeks worth of missed posts. So please comment and tell me how you are, and/or point me to the important entries so I can read them!

Oh, woe is me.

Remember when I posted about how busy I was going to be?

I made it through all the busy-ness, but then I crashed. Completely. I haven't read anything on LJ for a week, so I'm hopelessly behind, and I'm only just now starting to feel like I might feel human again in a day or two.

( What my week was like )

Saturday was the real killer. I went on an all-day photography trip to Ellicott City, Maryland. It was great fun, and I took over 200 photos (which will be posted eventually!), but it was exhausting!

( Ellicott City )

But as if that weren't enough, I was also going to a neighborhood party that night! It started out as a traditional progressive dinner, but there were too many people so it turned into a progressive hors d'oeuvres-and-dessert party -- everyone is assigned either an appetizer or a dessert, and we bring that over to the assigned home. Two houses have hors d'oeuvres and one has desserts. It starts at 7:00 at the first house; at 8:00 they ring a bell and we all walk to the next house till 9:00; then when the bell rings we go to the last house -- theoretically till 10:00, but it was still going strong when I left about 10:30. The food is really great -- many of the hors d'oeuvres are very hearty, and it really is a meal ... not a particularly healthy one, but a delicious one!

I had a very nice time, and was pumped up on adrenaline and endorphins from having fun so I didn't realize how tired I was. But there was a lot of standing around, and when I finally left I knew I was in trouble. I had planned to go to church Sunday morning -- the sermon was about voting, and I wanted to hear what the minister was going to say -- but I knew I wouldn't make it.

Sunday was a total disaster. I don't even remember it. I slept in, and just hung around the house like a zombie all day. I wasn't hungry after all the rich food the night before, and didn't even eat breakfast until mid-afternoon ... after which I put my head down on the table just to rest for a minute and ended up just conking out for awhile.

Despite increasing my dose of my arthritis meds and pain med to the highest allowed level, I felt pretty bad. Today was better, but I'm still trying to recover. (Which is why I didn't go to the PO today, Meredith. I want to send those papers by certified mail, and I just couldn't make it. I have to go out tomorrow (Tuesday), though, so I'll take them then. It's just one more day.) My left knee is still chastising me for stressing it out so much so I spent most of the day just resting and working on that huge pile of photos -- sorting through them, picking out the ones I want to keep, and getting them ready to upload. My friend Sue came over this morning so I could help her rehearse for her job interview on Wednesday, which she's very nervous about. She's coming over for awhile again tomorrow to iron out the problems we identified today.

Of course, in between everything else going on last week, I was dealing with the car stuff! And I just overdid. It's depressing to know so many people 10 and even 20 years older than me who have a lot more stamina than I do, but I have to live with the fact that I have two chronic pain disorders which are both very debilitating in different ways.

So I hope you'll understand why I haven't kept up with your journal all week! If anything important or interesting has happened, please point me to the post! I'll try to start catching up -- or at least start reading again -- tomorrow. (Which is Tuesday. I don't care what the time stamp or the calendar says, I haven't been to bed yet Monday night so as far as I'm concerned, it's still Monday!) (Why do I always write these long posts so late at night?)

Fortunately, this is a light week. The main scheduled item is the bird club meeting on Thursday night, at which cyanocorax is the featured speaker. The person who books the speakers and introduces them is out of town, so I was asked to introduce her. (cyanocorax, please give me a call if you're reading this, or I'll try to call you. I can't find the paper she gave me and I need to get the info from you!) Other than that I just have to catch up with everything I didn't do last week, from reading LJ to paying bills, laundry, cleaning, etc., etc., etc. So it will still be a busy week, but at least I can do it at my own pace -- I still have some underwear left in the drawer!

Thanks so much to those who have been commenting on my entries about my travails ... even though I don't always answer, I always appreciate the support!

Giving Val pills is ... interesting. I didn't know how good I had it with Friday. Friday is skittish but otherwise passive -- for example, although he loves belly-rubs best I can pet him any way I want and he doesn't mind. He'll hang around hoping to get something but is never intrusive -- the most he'll do is meow softly and plaintively. But Val has always been very strong-willed. You can only pet him certain ways, and at any given time it has to be the way he wants to be petted right then. When he wants something, you know it! He'll meow and pester and do whatever he has to to get dinner, or petting, or whatever.

So I didn't appreciate how comparatively easy it was to give Friday his pills. For one thing, Val is much bigger, and the big bath towel I had been wrapping Friday in wasn't big enough to hold him. Actually the beach towel I dug out isn't big enough either, but I'm afraid a blanket would be too big. (If anyone has any ideas of what I might have around the house that would be larger than a beach towel but smaller than a blanket, please mention it!)

Friday allowed me to push him down into a lying position and basically lay there while I rolled him up -- Val sticks his legs straight out and makes it impossible! I'm afraid to force him too much because he obviously has arthritis, and I'm afraid to hurt him. He's been making "hey, that hurts!" noises when I try to push him down. He goes every which way to escape -- I really need four hands for this job! But he does love those treats, and I've been giving him a couple to soften him up ahead of time, and then giving him more as soon as the pill goes down. If he realizes he'll get treats afterward, maybe he won't fight as hard.

Fortunately I only have to medicate him for a week, while Friday's medication is (or was) ongoing. Friday stopped vomiting so I think it was the anti-thyroid pills, but I guess we're going to have to try again -- but after Val is off the medication. Pilling two cats a day (the hard one twice) is too much to even contemplate.

But Friday isn't eating the canned food, and I'm worried about that. He seems to prefer the dry food he's been eating all his life, and I think he's becoming dehydrated again. He's not drinking as much, and if he won't eat the canned food I don't know what I'm going to do ... I can't keep going to the vet for IVs! Is there any other way to get fluid into them if they won't drink or eat moist food? Has anyone ever heard of giving cats IVs at home?

I went to bed at midnight last night (early for me) and woke up at 7:00 this morning. (NB: "this morning" is Tuesday, despite what the time stamp says.) I had the alarm set for 10:00 since I had a dental appointment, but didn't think I'd need it -- however I fell back asleep and woke up with a start from a vivid dream when the alarm went off. I slept for 10 hours! I really needed it, and I'm glad I caught up. I hoped it would help alter my schedule so I could go to bed earlier, but it's 1:30 am already.... =sigh=

The dental appointment was mildly harrowing. It was just a cleaning and it was fine until the end, when both my general dentist and the periodontist were scheduled to come in together and confer. They have a huge amount of work planned, and the perio especially is really champing at the bit -- he wants to call the ortho and tell him the braces have been on long enough (since November 2003) and they need to come off so he can start working!

I realize that the sooner my teeth are treated the better, but I paid $4000 for these damn things and I want the job done right! I asked the perio not to rush the ortho, but this ortho is a know-it-all and I don't think he'd take well to being rushed anyway, so I don't think I have to worry about that.

But my dentophobia reared up from talking to the two dentists about what they want to do to me. And it's going to cost thousands of dollars. We haven't even talked about that, but I need a whole bunch of new crowns, and I don't remember what else because I was too traumatized.

We also talked about tooth whitening, which woofiegrrl has been urging me strongly to get. (She wants me to have it done so much that she offered to pay half the cost if I would. It was off in the future when we talked about it, but pretty soon I'm going to have to ask her if she really meant it!) If I do it I would have to do the instant Zoom* procedure, because I'll have a night guard and a retainer and I can't do the overnight trays at home.

I spent ten minutes in the back office talking to the secretary who checked me out about my dentophobia and how great everyone there is, and that was helpful. I mentioned the possibility of tooth whitening, and she saw an assistant named Nora who had had it done and called her over. She told me all about it and she also assists with it herself, so she even took me back and showed me the light. It sounds very scary, but then so does everything else we talked about today. I'll just have to ask for a new Valium script.


* Links for me to check out later: 

Zoom website
Animated-teeth.com
Dentist.net
Google for more

I'm going to be getting my braces off within a few months. (I hope! It's been almost three years!)  So it's too late to get these now, but I sure wish I had known about this product sooner!

Comfort Cover is a specially designed flexible plastic shield that snaps securely into place on your brackets, and totally covers your braces from end to end. It provides hours and hours of relief from gum discomfort caused by orthodontic brackets and wires.

The regular wax I used for so long is horrible. It's hard to put on -- and it doesn't stay on, so you have to keep putting on more. You can't do it without a mirror because it's so hard to get right, and you can't do it in public because it's impossible to do discreetly.

Now I have the silicone "wax" which is much better than the regular stuff. It's still hard to get on, you still need a mirror and can't do it in public, but at least once you get it on right it stays on, even through eating (which is a good thing). In fact, it can take quite a while to get it off when you're trying to brush your teeth -- and it even stays on through brushing with an electric toothbrush if you forget (which is not a good thing).

My orthodontist buys the kind on this site and gives it out to patients. They got in the new stuff (in the pretty, sparkly boxes) several months ago and gave me a couple, and after that I always asked for that kind. I didn't know what it was -- all they said is it was a "new kind of wax that stays on better." I didn't find out what it was until tonight!

There's no point in getting a Comfort Cover now -- the inside of my lips are pretty well callused after more than 2½ years, and I usually only need to use the wax about a third to half of the time. But they're inexpensive, and even if they don't last long (which I assume they don't, since they urge you to buy them two pairs at a time), they would have been better at the beginning than the crappy wax.

Oh well. I hope to be free of these damn things before the three-year mark in November! (Of course then I'll have retainers to deal with ... I'm sure you'll be hearing about those when the time comes. =sigh= )

Today's accomplishments were yesterday's impossibilities.
                    —Robert H. Schuller (b. 1926), American minister, author

I had my braces adjusted today, and my teeth hurt. In addition to pulling harder on my teeth, an adjustment always changes the way my mouth meshes together, which causes strain on my jaw muscles, which in turn causes neck and shoulder pain where my jaw muscles pull on the other muscles. So basically everything above my collarbone hurts.

At least the flare in my right elbow that I was having yesterday has diminished, so there's something to be grateful for. On the other hand it's entirely possible that the stronger pain in my neck is gating out the lighter pain in my elbow, and I'm just not aware of it. Either way, my elbow isn't bothering me today.

Fortunately I have an acupuncture appointment this afternoon, so maybe when my qi is more balanced it will help resolve the pain and the sleep problems I've been having.

I don't have false teeth. Do you think I'd buy teeth like these?
—Carol Burnett