Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Endodontics

This week we had fun... kind of. Clemens had been complaining of a toothache in the root of his tooth (semi-obvious sign of a needed root canal). After a week of pain he finally consented to going to the dentist, who cleaned his teeth and promptly refered him to an endodontist to see about his roots a few hours later. The endodontist took better x-rays and let him know that the good news was that he needed 2 root canals, the bad news being that he had a 1 cm thick cyst in the bone behind the roots that was causing the pain (and the needed root canals). They sent him immediately into surgery where he was put out for 1 1/2 hours so they could clean out the puss and infection out of the cyst and perform the root canals. 6 stitches later he came out groggy and forgetful. He was a good patient though (for the surgon and for me taking him home!) Though he doesn't remember the surgery of my taking care of him for three hours after he got home, he is doing well. 4 days later he isn't even swelling anymore, didn't bruise (thanks to comfrey ointment) and is on his last day of antibiotics. The cyst would have looked something like this, but it covered 3 roots (yeah, it was big, and painful).

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