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{ 04 01 2011 }

mumble, mumble, drool

I mentioned a few weeks ago that one of the major symptoms of stress I have is teeth grinding. I wear a dental splint every night to try to minimise the effects of this, but even so I’m currently paying the price.

On Boxing Day, I was brushing my teeth on the boat in Venice, after a very unchallenging breakfast (yoghurt and honey, and a pain au chocolat). Suddenly there was a “clink” in the basin, as I spat out a large chunk of wisdom tooth. I hadn’t even felt it go crack!  Fortunately it didn’t hurt, as I think that finding an emergency dentist in Venice on Boxing Day would have severely challenged my resourcefulness.

I’ve been able to put up with the gaping hole until this afternoon, when I was able to get my own dentist to repair it. He confirmed that the most likely cause was me clenching my jaw and/or grinding my teeth, putting excessive stresses on the wisdom tooth. He’s put in a whopping filling, but says that tooth will always be weakened from now on. Now I’m waiting for the dental anaesthetic to wear off before I cook myself some dinner, as I bet I’d bite my numb tongue if I try to eat too soon.

Posted by Gillian on Tuesday, January 4, 2011, at 7:52 pm. Filed under status. Follow any responses to this post with its comments RSS feed. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.

{ 4 } Comments

  1. Frosty | 5 January 2011 at 10:34 am | Permalink

    Glad the tooth’s fixed and hope you managed to enjoy your dinner without and self-inflicted wounds

  2. Margaret Bennet | 5 January 2011 at 9:45 pm | Permalink

    I am glad to hear that you did something special for Christmas. It must have been tempting to try to go into hibernation instead. Your Gran showed a lot of wisdom in prompting to you to it. If I ever make it back to Venice, I’ll be sure to say Hi to Chris whilst I’m there. M xxx

  3. Gillian | 5 January 2011 at 10:21 pm | Permalink

    It was tempting just to stick my head under the duvet for a fortnight, but I was sensible enough to realise that wouldn’t be good for me in the long run. I’m really glad I did make the effort to go away. It was a big effort at times – especially with the dreadful snow we had here – but well worth it, despite the cracked tooth!

  4. David A | 5 January 2011 at 10:10 pm | Permalink

    My sympathies, having lost almost all of a tooth recently. I originally broke two at the same time (on a slice of pizza, though I think they were already weakened by previous fillings), and one of them later disintegrated (it was mostly filling anyway) resulting in a crown…