Uh Oh!

Right after Jason and I got back from camping in March (which I know, I did intend to write about it but life got really life-y) one (?) of my teeth started to hurt.

Like I've always seen those commercials for the "anti sensitivity" toothpaste and thought they were ridiculous and then suddenly I was the person drinking my tea and going OOOOOH! and grabbing the side of my face.  So no, apparently those ads aren't fake, I just hadn't had the issue before.  My bad.

So I had a couple of days of this pain with heat and cold and even chewing food with warmth wasn't ok and I looked at the teeth in the area (bottom right back) and thought I saw a crack and so I figured that I'd cracked one of my teeth when we were camping (because confession, I bought those mini Gobstoppers and I crunch those things!  NOM NOM NOM but also... uh oh.)

I went through a couple of days by avoiding that side of my mouth and then both Jason and C-Dawg told me I really should get into the dentist and then the internet told me the same.  A cracked tooth can go badly without care.  But my god I did not want to have to have a crown and all that entails.  But... pain.  And... not wanting things to go South, I called my dentist and they fit me in after hours the next day.  

I had to wait a while and as I did I got more and more anxious.  I really wanted to leave, but I knew leaving meant I'd have to come back and do it all over again and that things might get worse so I stuck it out.

X-rays, exam, questions, and then the news I hadn't even considered.  I didn't need a root canal.  

A ROOT CANAL?  I HADN'T EVEN CONSIDERED THAT OMG!!!!!  Damn....

But ok... 

Seems I do have a crack in a tooth in that area but he didn't want to rush into a crown situation without first seeing if the pain I was feeling was due to ... I can't actually quite remember what he said but like holes (?) in the bottom of my teeth from gum recession likely from over brushing and so he recommended I start using that toothpaste from the ad (rhymes with Schmensodye) before we go any further.

He asked about my brushing and I explained that toothpaste makes me nauseated so I can't use it much and so I just usually use my electric toothbrush and then do it extra.  Like double or triple what the toothbrush beeps at me to do.

Honestly, I have just always assumed that more is better.  Harder, faster, longer as that one song says....

But no.

Seems I have likely been overbrushing for a long time and that is really not a good thing for your teeth and mouth.  I honestly did not know.  I just always want them to be as clean as possible to reduce the scraping at the dentist.  (You see the cycle?  Trying to avoid one problem and then actually causing another.)

So I went and bought this toothpaste on the way home honestly thinking it was all just a big gimmick but after the first night (dentist suggested if I was having problems with the nausea I brush and then like "paste" some on the general area and rinse it off after 15 minutes... so I did both... brushed and coated.) I noticed a reduction in the pain.

Huh.  Go figure

And after a few weeks of using this paste I'm no longer bothered by hot drinks or warm food and only very occasionally, very slightly bothered by anything at all.

So the moral of the story is you can actually have too much of a good thing and you shouldn't brush too hard or too long or too often.

And you should use toothpaste if you can.  And this type of toothpaste if you have sensitivity issues.  And not all ads are lies!

(Knock on wood this toothpaste hasn't nauseated me yet, but it may be a "build up in the system" kind of thing so we'll see... but if it does I can probably go back to the coating for 15 minutes thing.)

I still have that crack and I suppose that will likely need fixing at some point (big sigh) but for now I'm ok and I have my regular checkup this week to update my dentist and see if there are any plans now.

Still don't know if I cracked that tooth on gobstoppers, but when I asked my dentist why things just suddenly started hurting all of a sudden from the gum recession thing he said that's kind of just how it goes sometimes.  So maybe the crack has been there for a while, maybe it happened camping, I don't know (my dentist probably does if it happened more than 6 months ago right?)

Anyway... dental stuff can really hurt.  And I don't like much to do with the fixing of those hurts  And that's too bad.  

I brushed myself to bad.  Who knew?