Evil Pocket

I have been suffering from what I’m calling the “evil pocket” for awhile. I mentioned this here and here.

Basically, left side of faces gets kinda sore, presumably from the food. Then body starts fighting bacteria. Then inflammation goes down. Rinse wash repeat.

Today, I took one of the picks I’ve had a long-time, sterilized the blunt end of it with isopropyl alcohol and used it too pull back my cheek. And then I saw it, a small hole approximately 1mm or so in my cheek-gum region, behind that last molar.

.

Why do I have this? Did I have this before? Or is this a relatively recent occurence? Sometimes I had bad breath before … was food getting stuck there? I dunno. I wasn’t aware of it before. But the inflammation feels kinda like the wonky feeling I had before … that led to me bugging my dentist about this.

This must be where all the crud is getting stuck. I’m going to start washing this out with that Monoject 412 they gave me and salt water and/or chlorhexidine mouth wash.

Incidentally, my back molar is black because of the chlorhexidine. It does stain your teeth. Apparently, it comes off when you get a dental cleaning, somebody told me (I don’t remember who).

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Trapped Stuff

The incision where the biopsy was performed appears to have healed. As I mentioned earlier, the stitches came out last week – 14 days later. The only observable thing I see is that now I have a little gum flap or gum bud. Some little piece of gum that kinda sticks out. Probably ~1mm squared in area and 1mm thick.

But in my back cheek, back behind my #18 (backmost molar), or maybe down where the cheek meets the gum in that little pocket, I’m trapping food. And it’s gross. I don’t like re-tasting food a few days later. Yuck.

Between when I eat and when I brush and clean it out, I notice that as time goes by it seems like my left mandible gets more tender. And I was pretty sure that last night the lymph nodes in the side of my neck where swelling a bit. And I’m still taking my amoxocillin (beta-lactamase antibiotics).

I’m willing to bet that the food getting trapped is causing this and that bacteria are sitting in that gap, feasting on this and that my body’s getting annoyed and causing inflammation.

I can feel stuff with the tip of my tongue. And I’ve found that I can take kleenex and get back there and “wipe it out”. Q-tips work a bit too. And it I use the needless syring my dentist originally gave me I can get some chlorhexidine back there. But it cleans out in waves over 30-60 minutes.

Just something I need to bring up at the next visit.

• I’m worried about the effects of this over a few weeks when my mouth is wired shut
• I’m also worried about this being a potential source of bacteria preventing any graft from taking due to infection.

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Pelvic X-rays

Today I went to the orthopedist (as I mentioned earlier). These are my pelvic X-rays (you can click on the images for a full-size image):

In this first one, the tech got the X-ray a little too low, you can’t see my iliac crest:

So they redid it:

One thing you will notice that’s common to both is the subtle radiolucent area on the left ilium. Down and right from where they want to take the donor bone.

This is subtle, just like the tumor in my jaw was. Not very apparent unless you stare at it a bit. I’ve highlighted it here:

Is this another spot of ameloblastoma that’s decided to grow elsewhere? If so, did it migrate or was it always there? And if I donate with it there, will I fracture my pelvis?

I will try to call the orthopedist tomorrow. The Dr. said to talk to his assistant and she’d call me back.

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No More Stitches Weird Drainage Goo

While I was working on journal entries and eating a bowl of sherbet tonight, I noticed this meaty distasteful stuff in my mouth, back where the biopsy was done. I was able to remove it with my tongue and it was disgusting. It looked like the potted meat I had last night with the stew I had today. Absolutely vile.

And I noticed I was bleeding again. Not a whole lot, just streaking in my saliva and if I put a kleenex back there, it had some pink spotting.

And poking around some more, I noticed, no more stitches! I guess they finally decided to come out. They were supposed to come out in 3-10 days, but they took 14. What are these stitches made out of? Did I swallow them?

I brushed my teeth and cleaned my mouth out, rinsing with more chlorhexidine. Actually, I’m letting it sit in my mouth for a few minutes to soak everything and demonstrate it broad spectrum bacteria killing goodness.

Also my jaw was kinda hurting again before the goo and the stitches popped out or dissolved, thus the taking of the pain reliever earlier.

The other weird thing about it is, that my back most molar was black or really dark when I looked at it. Then after I brushed, everything seemed okay. What gives?

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Iliac Crest

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iliac_Crest
http://www.emedx.com/emedx/diagnosis_information/hip_pelvis_disorders/iliac_crest_model.htm
http://health-pictures.com/conditions3/iliac-crest-picture.htm
http://radiology.usc.edu/Presentations/SaddleProsthesis/pelvic%2520girdleb.jpg
http://forums.runnersworld.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/678106477/m/5471046294

Apparently, the iliac crest is where leg/hip muscles attach. Shit! And they’re going to have to take part of mine. Am I going to have to hobble around on a walking cane or crutches for the rest of my life? Maybe I’ll become a crotchety old man with a cane, like House MD.

Oh great! The external oblique muscle attaches there too. How do they attach the abdominal muscles back? What do they attach them too?

And the last is from runners. I’m guessing that I probably won’t ever run again after this. Not that I really could run all that far as I had bad shin splints. But it might come in handy some day, like if I have to run from a wild animal, a crazy person or some kind of natural catastrophe that’s happening right before my eyes.

Not to mention, the pelvis can fracture from this sometimes.

I’m going to make them take a CT scan of this. Really. I don’t want them to mess this up.

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Gingevectomy deferred

Today, I went in to see my dentist.  The gum in my left lower back part of my mouth grows up over the molar in the back and food gets trapped up under it.  Then it gets infected, which causes the gum to swell up.  And no matter how much I brush, I’ve never been able to get back there an floss behind it – it’s just too tight and the gum is always in the way.

So I went in today, just to get the excess gum tissue cauterized away.  This is called a gingevectomy.  Jaw numbed up, electro-cautery pen (kind of like a soldering iron), no big deal.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had this same procedure done.  It is in fact the fourth.  It seems like I just need to get this done every few years or so.  I get some pain relievers, after the novocain wears off it hurts for a few hours then it’s okay.  After a few days, all healed up.  And my mouth invariable tastes like teriyaki chicken for the rest of the day.

But today I went in expecting to get my gingevectomy right then and there (just like every previous time I’d had this done), only to be given a quick exam and sold a 16oz bottle of chlorhexidine for $32 and told to come back next week.  Couldn’t I have gotten this at the pharmacy with my prescription insurance for $5?  At least it has all of the doctor notes on the side.  Even has stick diagrams!  I hate the consumer version, I want to know all the details.  Like how that they think this works by disrupting the membrane potentials of bacteria and how that in their tests, no bacteria was able to evolve an immunity to chlorhexidine.  These things I relish.

I also complained about how the left side of my jaw had a wonky feeling.  You know how you get a bruise and the next day it’s kind of tender, but maybe not terribly.  Well, my left jaw feels that way too.

Well, till next week then.

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