Wednesday, December 08, 2004

Jaw's swelling, yet another infection

My right lower jaw has started swelling since Monday. I had been contemplating whether to see the dentist. I don't have a fear for dentist, possibly because I have been visiting a dentist quite regularly since my teens because I had to wear braces in those years. I was hesitant to see a dentist more because I was quite concerned whether I was making myself seem quite a paranoid, which admittedly I could be at times. I had visited him in early November because of a sharp sensation at the jaw area, only to find out nothing is really wrong. It is just because the jaw bone is growing, to fill the cavity left by the extraction of the wisdom teeth.

For your information, I had extracted two of my wisdom teeth sometime in September this year.

Just when I was rather undecided whether to visit the dentist, two of my friends urged me to visit him anyway over the MSN. So I went this afternoon, and I am glad that I did.

The dentist examined the affected area, and he said there was pus at the affected area. There was an infection, so he helped cleared the affected area of pus. To do so in a painless way, he had to give me injection of local anaesthetic. This had the lower left side of my face and mouth rather numb.

He said because there was a rather deep cavity left by the extraction of the wisdom tooth on the right side of the lower jaw, and because there was a tiny "pocket" where food particles may seep into the cavity, that is why the infection had occurred. My best bet is that the cavity would be filled up in time to come by jaw bone. If I were to have another infection within the next six months, we may have to consider filling up the cavity with synthetic bone to reduce the risk of further infection.

I just hope that my jaw would heal soon.


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