The Good, the Bad, and the OUCH!

So many things going through my head tonight. Mostly the latter of that title. The ouch! One of my molars started hurting last night during dinner. I had a filling put in it last month and assumed that was the problem. It still hurt this morning so I called the dentist and managed to get squeezed in at 10am. After x-rays (very uncomfortable x-rays I might add), poking, looking, thinking, a bite test (OWWWW!) and more thinking – the cause is not officially determined. It’s been narrowed down to 2 options. Either I somehow upset the ligament holding the tooth (root with me for this one, ok?) or I cracked my tooth. If it’s a upper tooth crack, I’ll probably need a crown. But, if it’s in the roots, she said it’ll have to come out. Definitely rooting for the ligament problem.

So, what does one do for a ligament issue involving a tooth? Apparently take anti-inflammatory and wait. Sounds simple enough? Nah. I like to complicate things. See, I don’t react well to medicines with naproxen. All anti-inflammatories have it. I’ve been through this one with the pharmacists enough to know that ibuprofen, Advil, Alleve, etc. are all bad for me. But the dentist wanted to check. Ok. I wait and let her. She comes back with another option (still has naproxen though) – try taking aspirin. Only be careful because aspirin can cause allergic reaction in asthmatic patients. Uh huh. Great. I have asthma. And enough allergy issues.

After that excitement I found myself in the drug store looking through my aspirin options. Every thing had “(NSAID)” as part of the label (ie, that equals “contains naproxen”). Frustrated and hurting, I opted to grab a bottle of ibuprofen. Yes, it’s on my “do not take list” but so is every other option. The tooth hurts and I was getting pretty irritable. I really thought it was *just* the filling and she would refill it. Then bye-bye pain. Nope. Still here. And, so far, no horrid reaction to the ibuprofen.