Hi Dave,

I am SO sorry you are hurting so badly!! I too find it odd that you are in such discomfort 5 days post op. Yes, the palate will be sore but generally it heals very quickly and the pain at this point is usually minimal if at all. I tend to think that your need to forcefully expectorate sputum can be irritating to your palatal tissue. I am also not sure what they glued the periodontal putty on your palate with, but this could be irritating the tissue as well which will cause it to be more sore. I think you will feel a whole lot better once they remove that putty. The periodontist that I worked with never glued that putty over any surgical wound and our patients did really well post operatively. Sometimes people can be sensitive to the putty material and that would cause an inflammation which would make the area hurt. So we never adhered it to the surgical site but rather just allowed it to come off on it's own which would happen in about 3-4 days.

As far as as the toothache pain........ Before you can graft the palatal tissue to the area of the tooth that has the recession, the dentist will cut away or laser off any diseased tissue around the tooth and scrape the root of the tooth removing all the tartar and granulomas tissue. This removal of tissue and tartar exposes a part of the root of the tooth making it susceptible to temperature sensitivity which could cause a rather chronic toothache. When the graft is sutured on, the idea is to cover that exposed root surface and hope that the body does not reject the grafted tissue.

Pain in the mouth can radiate to the ears or other areas of the head, neck....... so you may be experiencing referred pain in your ear.

I wish you were feeling better!! Keep rinsing with the mouth rinse to keep the bacteria down and hopefully you will get instant relief when they remove the periodontal dressing.

Keep us posted!!

Bryanna

The message is rated "L" for love.

Thanks again for your kind words and good, solid ideas.

I get caught up in a "Why Me Lord" loop. It is not unusual for anyone going through surgery and other severe medical problems.

Entry point for me is: "Wow, the pain level is higher now than before they started. Wonder why?"

Then I mentally make a list of my problems and compare them with friends my general age and hit the "Why Me Lord" button. Most of my contemporaries are out playing golf, etc. I don't like golf, but logic has long since left my thought process.

THEN I blame Medicare, Tricare, etc. and I hit Medicare because they disallowed some test. And while I am at it, we should demand to know what medical plan the "Ruling class" (Congress) is using. Yeah, (I am on roll now) if they had to fight with Medicare like we common folk do, our life would be better.

I look for more info and whine under my breath......

Then I read in our forum about people who are multiple amputees
and those who cannot see ... Part II of "Why Me Lord" is going down in flames. I am mad at me by now. How dare I gripe when so many people have lost everything. If the sun didn't rise because of me, I might understand it all much better.

I spent a week with my mom when she was dying. The worst week of my life. Every night I held Mom's hand and prayed for my Lord and Savior to take her home. I would stay with her until she would "get easy" and go to sleep around 2-3am.

I cried hard one night and asked Jesus how he could allow MY mother to be in such pain. He had a mother on Earth, how would He feel if His mother was laying there hurting like my mom was.
Now .... whether you are a Christian or an Atheist or Agnostic, that is your business, but when a voice from no where said "THERE WAS NO MORPHINE ON THE CROSS." I was stunned.... I was scared ... but most of all, I understood and never made that complaint again. Another night I asked my Lord and Savior why it was taking so long for my mom to leave her earthly body and He said, "It isn't about you." I remembered some things my mom had said about her family. I asked a senior nurse in the Hospice staff what was keeping my mom alive and she looked me in the eye and told me I was keeping her alive. I realized what she meant as soon as she said it. I walked back into my mom's room and told her I had to leave the next day so she could leave this world. I told her, between sobs, that she had done a wonderful job and she was loved by all of us. She needed to think of herself first for a change and turn loose. It was ok. I told her I would have to leave her so she could move on. The next day I came in and told her we loved her and I would see her before she knew it. Walking out of that room was the single hardest thing I have ever done. I spent hundreds of days in South East Asia and I am not a stranger to death. Death is not always bad. As I left the room my son-in-law was arriving with his pastor. They rushed down the hall to see if I would like to join them in prayer, after all, times like this can be very awkward. They seemed to feel like I might not know how to find God. I was still crying when I told them there had only been one set of footprints in the sand for the last 5 days and I flew home. Stress is a funny thing, it wasn't until I got home that I realized I had not eaten for 5 days.

The following Tuesday around 10:20am I felt this compulsion to call about my mom. When I got through the nurse told me my mom had just died. Mom was saying "Good Bye" without the phone.

My Pity Party has now came full circle. With so many people suffering from horrible problems, I have no right to complain, so I will withdraw any complaints I mentioned. "This too shall pass".

God Bless all of you. It hurts coming in to this world and it hurts going out. Not sure why, but that is just how it seems to go.
Thanks again Bryanna, I will try to do better......Dave

Hi Dave,

I know you are upset about what you are going through. Please don't feel that you need to apologize for feeling out of sorts. The anticipation of having this type of dental treatment is very stressful and not everyone will experience the same results. I hope that by now you are feeling better and when they take the periodontal dressing off everything is healing nicely!!

I understand your message about letting your mom go. I have had to do that a few times in my life and I have never regreted my decision. I truly believe it's important to love others enough to let them go. Not only in death but in life as well. Perhaps this subject could be discussed in more depth on another forum on this site??

In the meantime........ Please keep in touch and let us know how you are doing!!

Bryanna

First, let me remind everyone here to thank their care givers.

My wife really is a gift from God. I won't bore you with the details,
but she has the patience and love that most of you women possess and most of we men dream of.

The surgeon looked at my mouth, said it is healing well and he thinks the surgery "took". That is good. I told him I have a tooth ache 24/7 and it appears to be coming from 3 different teeth. He said that happens some times and wanted to know if I needed any pain meds. I thanked him and declined.

I saw my pain med dr. and she agreed we should double my oxycodone until this is over. The oxycodone does work. If I stay "ahead" of the pain. I am lucky I don't care for these pain meds. My wife taught a substance abuse class in her school district, so she monitors my usage.

Bryanna, I understood the surgeon to say I can brush the upper teeth, even floss them if I am careful, but I don't remember any instructions about the lower teeth. I am just rinsing them with the prescription stuff he ordered for me.

How about gargling with warm salt water to toughen the skin? My main question about that is the reaction of my gums to the salt water. Usually it toughens our skin up. Any opinions about using warm salt water after this surgery? I understand every human reacts a little differently...... but I don't want to mess up any sutures, etc.

Thanks....Dave

Hi Dave,

Glad to hear that the dentist said the area is healing well!

Generally, the areas that have had a free gingival grafting done should not be flossed until after your second post op appointment with the dentist. However, it is important to keep the areas very clean. Gentle brushing with a very soft toothbrush with or without toothpaste. IF you are still rinsing with the chlorhexidine, then don't use the salt water. Salt water is excellent for certain types of oral surgery but not usually recommended for igrafting procedures until the donor tissue has integrated with the gum tissue. The reason being is that the salt water could cause the grafted tissue to slough off and that is NOT what you want.

As for the teeth in the upper quadrant where you had the tissue removed from your palate.......... yes, it is a good idea to floss and brush those teeth but just clean them gently until the palate heals.

And thanks for the kind words toward ALL women!! We are absolutely a gift from God......... ~'.'~

Keep us posted!
Bryanna

Hi, life has been strange the last few days. Sort of darned if you do and darned if you don't.

I count shots. I hate them, won't even watch someone get a shot on TV. But when I am in the "Dentist's" chair I count the shots. I think I counted 14 and sort of quit. Then I said I could feel the needle going into my gums towards the end and I got 8 more. I might be off one or two, but that many shots makes me sore and after discussing this with my surgeon and Pain Med Dr. I doubled my oxycodone for about 10 days. When the pain really started hurting I took 15mg. Usually about 2 hours later I took another 15mg. I am guessing my max for any one day was around 75mg. I also doubled my Avinza to 60mg....90mg on the worst days.

Then I quit all of it in one day ... I took 30mg of morphine because my body is dependent. No addiction here, just a medical dependency for the moment. I felt like I had the flu, slept day and night, no appetite. No solid food for many days.
My wife told me I was having withdrawals from the opiates and I said I didn't think so, but I would go back up to 60mg of Avinza in the morning. I did and I am feeling much better.

Opiates are a tool. I don't like them, but I respect them. A necessary evil if you will. Like a gun or chain saw...it serves a purpose, but don't lose respect for it.

I am back up to 60mg a day of Avinza and feeling much better. I am still on the prescribed mouthwash and most of my mouth is pain free. I brush my entire mouth with a very soft toothbrush that I run under very hot water before I use it. I use toothpaste in the evening and brush my tongue, as instructed. Then I wash my mouth out with the prescription rinse. It seems to be working ok so far.

I talked with my Pulmonologist and Pain Med Dr. and surgeon. The next session I will be put under, but will use a pulse ox monitor. If my pulse ox falls below 85 or my heart rate under 40, they will bring me out of it. Or if I quit breathing I guess....

I wore the leads for the Avant/Nonin 9600 last night. Pulse ox runs 43-44 most of the time and my pulse ox runs in the mid 80s again. It went through 85 and woke me up once, so I set it on 75. It did not wake me after that.

My sleep Apneas (where I quit breathing) ran as high as 47.2 per hour during one sleep session. 10-17 per hour was normal.

Now that I am off the heavy meds, my AHI was 4.0 last night.
Back to normal. It has been an experience and God Willing, I only have one more to go. Not sure what we can do about my upper teeth. Maybe put super glue on them, with a hair dryer and while we hold the jaw tissue away from the teeth. Just a thought.

I hope the gas works better. I have never done it before. Anyone here used gas?

Surgery was April 10th. Follow up the 17th and the surgeon was pleased with the healing.

So why do I have a toothache.... still. I am back on oxycodone.
I did not have a toothache for several days, now I do.

Normal? I guess every surgery is different, but this seems strange.

BTW, my Pulmonologist said it would be OK to put me under with ...
what? Nitrous oxide sedation I think he called it.

Bryanna, do you ever participate or observe surgery where they use Nitrous Oxide?

Hi Dave,

Is the toothache in the tooth that had the grafting done? If so, then it could be that some of the root is exposed which could cause a toothache. Normally the root surfaces are covered with gum tissue which protects the tooth from temperature sensitivity. The root surfaces are not covered by hard enamel like the rest of the tooth. Or you could be grinding or clenching your teeth which could also cause a toothache. Or the scraping of the root surface in preparation for the graft could have traumatized the tooth which irritated the nerve and it's letting you know! Make sure the dentist takes an xray of that tooth to see if there is any radiographic pathology going on.

Yes, I am very familiar with nitrous oxide usage during surgery. It is sometimes referred to as laughing gas..... although most people don't actually laugh when they use it. This is a light sedation which will NOT put you to sleep. The feeling is similar to having a few beers. You feel a little out of it and your body feels a bit heavy and relaxed. It is recommended that you NOT eat for a few hours prior to using the gas to avoid the possibility of feeling nauseated. There are no after affects as the gas is totally flushed out with pure oxygen before you get out of the dental chair. Local anesthetics are still used to numb the areas being worked on.

Keep us posted!

Bryanna

Bryanna,
Thank you for the info on "Laughing Gas" and on the irritated nerves.

I have 2 teeth in the area treated, lower left...does 20-27 sound right? Anyway, the other tooth is in my upper right side..molar type in the back. IF I bend over, so my head is sort of upside down, the upper tooth hurts. I can almost "feel" weight on it.

As for the choice of laughing gas vs valium. Guess that does not matter. After all those shots last time I had a GREAT DEAL OF TROUBLE "voiding liquids". Almost impossible. Catheterization was next. So taking all those shots has a negative after effect, not to mention the pain. I think I took 15mg of Valium before I went in. My monthly consumption of valium, normally, is about 10-20mg, so 15mg was (I thought) a large dose. I weigh 220 pounds.

I wish they could completely sedate me, do the work, I would take my oxycodone for pain and move on. I am getting VERY anxious about going back. Almost to the point of having them pull the other effected teeth. My life was not fun before the surgery and it has went decidedly downhill since. Not the surgeons fault, but ..... at least one more to go. THAT will be hard.

Darned tooth aches come back EVERY day around 4-6pm. Oxycodone stops the pain. But why EVERY evening?