So, it's a gum graft then?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I went to the dentist today for a cleaning and a pocket test. I HATE THIS!! I had a lot of dental work done last year and the gums have been slowly healing. I did okay for the most part. The majority of threes stayed threes and some fours became threes. Unfortunately, a few threes became fives! :eek:

These were on the lower right side. I have been brushing with a Sonicare for over a year and half now and thought I was doing a good job. Not good enough, I guess. I asked the hygenist whether or not the fact that I’m right-handed had anything to do with it. She said yes. I tend to put more pressure on the left side. I guess I’ll start switching hands when I get to the right side.

Then the dentist comes in. He looks at my lower cuspids & bicuspids and sees that, while the gums are healthy, they ARE receding. He said it’s possible to repair this with a gum graft.

He assured me that getting this done should be the last major repair I’ll need barring some tooth-shattering accident and the possible replacement of my 20+ year old fillings.

Anybody here have a gum graft? Did you get knocked out for it or did you go for the local? Considering the great success I had with getting a wisdon tooth extracted under anesthesia, I would be willing to pay extra.

2

I had one a couple of years ago (I was eating mashed potatoes while watching unfolding coverage of 9/11, as a matter of fact). I had two large sections done on the top (8 teeth, if I recall). I was terrified and wanted to be knocked out, but they just gave me a local. Luckily the periodontist was a riot and that really helped. You know how they put dark glasses on you in the dentist chair to keep the light out of your eyes? He told me it was so he and the hygienist wouldn’t have to see me cry. Then as he was doing it, he mentioned that the only reason he did this kind of work was for all the blood and gore. He made me feel a lot better (I’m not kidding, gallows humor is great, especially when you’re the one in the gallows). If your perio isn’t that cool, see if they’ll let you have a walkman.

They numb you up really good, but don’t be shy about asking for more. I had him go back in a couple of times with the Novocain. By that point I couldn’t really feel the needle, so I figured what the heck. The first thing they do is take the skin from the roof of your mouth, then they attach it to the gums being treated. It takes a while (I think I was there for about 90 minutes), so do your best to relax.

Afterwards, they stitch the gums and cover the roof of your mouth where they took the skin from with a sort of clay packing. Like an idiot, I kept the packing on the roof for a whole week, but I could have taken it off after a few days. Ask them when you can take it off because it’s pretty gross and breaks apart and you end up eating little bits of it. Blech. When you take it off, it’s really weird because everything is so sensitive. It’s a little scary and it will take a few days before you feel comfortable eating. It’s like the roof of your mouth is burned really bad from pizza.

I have to go back to get the bottom row done and although I’m not looking forward to it, I’m not as scared as I was the first time. In the end, it wasn’t particularly painful. Just a constant throbbing and tenderness. I didn’t even take the painkillers he prescribed because they reacted badly with the antibiotics. I just took Alieve and felt pretty ok. The worst part is the first day because you’ve been in the chair for so long, you’ve lost some blood, you’re discombobulated from the Novocain and you’ve got all this new junk in your mouth that wasn’t there before. You’ll want to get home ASAP. I drove myself, but it’s better to have someone pick you up.

Here are my suggestions. Get all the soft, bland food before hand (pudding, mashed potatoes, apple sauce, even overcooked pasta was ok), have the dentist office call in your pain killer prescription before you leave so you’re not just hanging around the pharmacy waiting (I wish I had done this, I almost passed out in the pharmacy because I felt crappy and was getting really agitated), rent a lot of movies, get a cat who will cuddle with you while you feel sorry for yourself for the next few days.

Good luck! It sounds awful, but it’s not really that bad!

3

How weird. I’d never heard of this until earlier today when I was talking with a coworker at a new job and she was telling me she’d had one.

I didn’t ask for details, however, being dentist-phobic.

4

I, too, was dentist-phobic up to about two years ago. I had no choice but to go. All in all my experiences were not that bad. Not cheap, but not bad.

As always, YMMV.

5

I opened this thread thinking I would learn about how people are using sticks of Wrigley’s to scam money off rubes. No, really.