Monday, I'm going to have my first tooth pulled. I've been lucky and always taken care of my choppers. A few cavities here and there but never dealt with anything major. The dentist I go to does more cosmetic work than anything else. I go to him for check ups, cleanings etc. A couple of years ago, I had him look at a tooth in the very back that I could tell was chipped. It was my top, right wisdom tooth. He looked and said it's actually cracked and should come out. He doesn't do extractions so he referred me to an oral surgeon. He looks at it and says no problem, just make an appointment when I'm ready. BTW, it was giving me zero problems so I just let it rock on. I'm talking almost a year's worth of rock on.
Late last year, I'm sitting in my office and got tazed right in the jaw. I mean a frickin' electric shock wave hit me like a ton of bricks out of the blue. The shock waves and pain would last for about an hour before they would subside. This would sometimes happen 2-3 times a day. Sometimes once every few days. My dentist thought it might be a sinus infection so I saw an ENT. Nope. I went to my regular doc and she said it sounded like "Trigeminal Neuralgia". Oh dear God, no. I had already done the obligatory Google search with my symptoms and was scared to death that that was what it was. That's affectionately called the Suicide disease. No cure for it and when it gets full blown, your life is sitting in a dark room, pounding pain killers dealing with constant shock waves ripping through your face. Then, as fast as it jumped on me, the episodes stopped for months, until a few weeks ago.
Long, cool story, bro short, after being seen by another doc, the cause/solution was simple. Half of that cracked tooth had broken off and I have an exposed nerve. Hopefully, Monday will be the end of it, because it gets real old, real fast to have the wife walk in and see me clutching a pillow with tears rolling down, looking like a 6 year old who didn't get that bike for his birthday.
Speaking of sinus infections, I've had one in my life. I started having increasingly bad headaches every day to the point that I couldn't function at all. Of course, I was certain I had a brain tumor. Turns out IT'S NOT A TOOMAH. It was a bad sinus infection. Never really knew what they were until then. People used to say, "I have a sinus infection". I'd think, oh go blow your nose you big baby. Wrong!