A Pain Worse Than Labor

A toothache. I am in pain. Terrible pain. When I gave birth to Addie, I was in labor for 17 hours, pushed for over 2 and then had my placenta manually wrenched from my uterus. This seems worse. The stupid toothache started on Friday morning and by Friday night I decided it was time to pop a Motrin. Since then it has only escalated. Now it is Sunday and I have 49 minutes before I can take my next Vicodin. After I had Addie the only pain relief medication I took was Motrin (after the epidural of course). I decided I was such a tough cookie in the hospital that I didn’t need the Vicodin my doctor said I could have. Thankfully I kept the prescription though as I’ve sent Cap off to the pharmacy to cash in.

We flew back from our amazing trip to New Mexico yesterday. I was so sad to leave but under the circumstances it is for the better. I’d have been a real party pooper if I’d stayed. I popped Motrin the entire flight and sucked on ice cubes to numb my gums. I had been worried about taking pain medication because I didn’t want to dose my baby, but at about 1 am last night I said “screw this” and took 2. Cap informed me that we were going to call my dentist and make an emergency appointment today. I knew it was the only choice when even the Vicodin couldn’t fully cut the pain.

Dr. Wong met me at his office on Sunday morning, took x-rays and did a preliminary root canal to relive the pressure in my front tooth. Apparently I damaged the nerves on this tooth at the same time that I killed my other front tooth back in 1990 when I bonked my teeth on Jenny Crowell’s forehead.

I didn’t know that your nerves could be so raw that even Novocain couldn’t numb the pain. The drilling was awful and whimpered like a little puppy. I tried my Lamaze breathing exercises. Tomorrow I have to go to an endodontist to have the root canal finished and I expect more pain. At least with labor you know it has to end and the result is a beautiful baby.