dental story

It seams like everyone has a dental story... and now I do too!

The small piece of tissue connecting my bottom gum to my lip was not quite small enough and started pulling my gum tissue down (okay... my gum was receding at alarming rates). So I had to have periodontal surgery to cut that tissue and then graft some gum tissue over the now largely exposed tooth (you see, the tooth below your gum isn't as protected as the tooth above the gum, and is more subject to decay so it needs the protection).

Well - the procedure was easy due to nitrous gas (honestly I was having a ball the entire time)... and the rest hasn't been painful - just a little annoying for two reasons. First I wasn't allowed to have any crunchy food - since it might tear up the sensitive new tissue and thus my diet has been limited to soup, bananas, and pudding. Second, I wasn't allowed to look at the healing progress- since it might cause the stitches to come out, and me lose my new gum layer. But, then I'd have hints of it all the time: the stitches floating around, the weird new item I feel at the bottom of my lip... and I would swear it wasn't right.

So after being clueless for about a week - I got in to the dentist and he reported that it was mostly right. Good news is nothing was lost. Bad news was there was a slight tear in my graft, leaving a V shaped gum over the tooth. But it's not too big of a deal, hopefully in the next couple of months the new gum tissue will just grow into place. If not, it can be moved back up... just have to re-do the no eating solids and no peaking rules!