I know a lot of you were praying for me and worried about me so I thought I would give you all and update and some good news.
Wednesday, after getting home from class (I got 50/50 on the half of the test where we had to do three paragraphs .. I'll find out about the multiple choice part of the test next Wednesday), I was pretty much miserable. I was, for the most part, chained to a water glass or bottle because my mouth hurt constantly and drinking cool/ice cold water was the only thing that eased the pain. It was so bad that, if I had to put the water bottle down and go into another room, I would find myself running back to find the water bottle in a pain-induced panic.
That night, I was only able to sleep for 2-5 minutes at a time before having to reach for the water glass. I had taken my last pain pill so there was no relief in sight. I was so out of it that I kept falling asleep wherever I was sitting and dropping the water glass. Between that night and the next day, I had cleaned up water and ice at least 10 times! The doctor wouldn't approve of a refill for the pain medicine so my roommate got on the phone and called them. The doctor finally agreed to call in a refill but had the nurse tell me that she wanted me to go to the emergency room because of my high blood pressure (at that time, my blood pressure was 135/83 - and this was when I was in severe pain -- hardly worth going to the hospital for). I told the nurse this and she just went on about how the emergency room doctor could sign the paper for the dentist. I just basically refused saying that my blood pressure was normal that day and hung up the phone. I see no reason to pay several hundred dollars that I don't have just to get a doctor to sign a paper when there are several dentists that don't check blood pressure.
Anyway, we got the medicine and I took two pills right away then started myself back on the amoxicilin which I had quit taking a few days ago because I had taken it for 14 days straight. I should mention that at this point the whole side of my face was so sore that I couldn't touch it. Everything hurt - even crying hurt! So I took 3 amoxicilin capsules to start then later on took a third pain pill and 4 excedrin back and body tablets because, by that time, even the water wasn't easing the pain.
About 2 hours later, I noticed that I wasn't needing the water as much. Not long after that, the pain eased up almost completely! I went to bed at about 10:30 and don't remember anything until I woke up much later on desperately needing to use the restroom. I checked the clock at it was 5:30am!! I had actually slept for 7 hours straight! One other thing I noticed -- NO TOOTHACHE!!!!
I went back to sleep and woke up at 10:30am with only a mild toothache. I only had to take one of the pain pills and two excedrin back and body pills instead of the normal 1 1/2 pain pills, 4 excedrin back and body, and 2-4 of the over the counter motrin tablets.
I've spent much of the day sleeping and I feel pretty good. The tooth is still painful but not really too bad. It is sore enough that I cannot bite down on it but it isn't so sore that I cannot touch it with my tongue. Yesterday, anything except water touching that tooth would show me new levels of pain. Today, it's just sore. All things considered, I do not want to know how bad that infection had gotten. I am still wondering how it got like that considering I had been taking amoxicillin when this whole thing started.
So, I am keeping on my course of antibiotics and just taking it easy. I am going to start searching for a good dentist starting with asking everybody from my church on Sunday. Monday, I will start making the calls so I can hopefully get this tooth pulled by Friday.
