Over a year ago I had two molars extracted and complications persist to the present.  People whom I see regularly ask me how it’s progressing, so what follows chronicles the entire experience.  Most of you should stop reading now because why should you care?  But for those who have been staunch and caring friends, inquiring regularly, or who slow down for accidents hoping to see blood, or who are hooked on Grey’s Anatomy, here’s the tale.

About November 2014 I was getting some twinges somewhere in the upper right quadrant of my mouth.  It continued to get worse into December. I had a deep cleaning in July, so I didn’t figure the problem was too serious.  Also I was planning to spend about six weeks or so with my son, daughter-in-law and granddaughters in Maryland in December and January.  Also, I was changing insurance plans, so resolved to wait until I returned to have it looked at.

As soon as I got back to Long Beach I called and made an appointment with my dentist.  After an exam and x-rays, the dentist told me that one tooth was abscessed and would need to be extracted. This was February 6, 2015.  Well, after getting in there, he determined that the adjacent tooth also was abscessed so after three hours of cutting, grinding, picking and pulling those two teeth were dug out, piece by piece.  I know exactly what was going on because I was under just local anesthetic. I won’t detail the ordeal, but I’m sure that you know that it was no picnic. Oh yeah, and in the process of digging out the teeth, he punctured my sinus cavity. But he thought that it would heal on it’s own.

Now, since there was a hole in my sinuses that communicated to my mouth, I was no longer able to play trumpet or any musical wind instrument.  In fact, I couldn’t even drink with a soda straw because the pressure pushed liquid from my mouth up into my sinuses.  I had to drop out of the various organizations I was playing in except with the concert band, I joined the percussion section and continued to make noise. Of course, I also had infections in the sinus.

In March I had a root canal and had also been going in weekly for monitoring the healing from the extracted teeth.  Well, it wasn’t healing, so I was referred to an oral surgeon whom I saw March 17.  He told me that it wasn’t healing because there remained a root fragment in the area.  He said that he would remove the root fragment and cut a flap to cover up the hold, stitch it up and I would be good to go.  After he left, I was visited by Jessie James who hit me with the price.  In shock, I requested that he put it in writing and staggered out the door.  I called my dentist, told him what the surgeon had said and asked him to remove the root fragment.  That happened the following week.  He kept monitoring my progress but the hole still wasn’t healing, so it was time to go back to the oral surgeon.

I did that June 1, 2015.  He gave me the same diagnosis and I told him that I couldn’t afford his prices.  So I began checking out doctors in Mexico.  Many people in Southern California to to Mexico for their dental care.  I found one that I liked and drove down to Rosarito June 22, 2015.  He had arranged for an oral surgeon to be in attendance, so they made the flap, sewed me up, prescribed a fist full of antibiotics and things and sent me home.  Yes, that was done with local anesthesia also.  Extremely painful, but I’m tough.

Three weeks later, still hurting and not  healing, I go back to Mexico and they do the procedure again — cutting a new flap, cleaning out my sinuses, using some other material to cover the hole and reinforce it, sewed me up and sent me back home again warning that if it didn’t work this time, significant surgery would be required.  And yes, I was awake again through the entire operation.  No, not fun!

For the next almost few months, I keep hoping against hope that it would eventually close, but instead, it’s just getting worse.  Constant sinus infections, discomfort, etc. so I go to my PCP and ask him to give me a referral to see another oral surgeon.  Insurance denies it so then I spend hours and days being passed among various insurance people.  Eventually one tells me to request a referral to an ENT instead of an oral surgeon.  So I do that.  Somebody drops the ball, so I make another round of phone calls, hours on hold, being transferred to the wrong departments and all the rest.  Finally I got a referral authorization for an ear-nose-throat doctor.  I made an appointment for mid-January.  A couple days before the appointment I receive a call from the office telling me that the doctor would not be available and I had to reschedule for a later date and I would not be able to get the original doctor, but a different one.

January 28, 2016 I see the ENT specialist.  She sends me for a CTScan.  More delays.  I get the scan and hand carry the results back to the ENT and get an appointment.  I see her again February 18th. So I have a totally infected sinus, a very large hole between my mouth and sinus cavity and a deviated septum. I should also mention that two oral surgeons and two dentists have told me that the original dentist did a poor job of extracting the teeth which means that I will need a bone graft or some type of filler to underpin the repair.  Fixing all this will require a joint effort between an oral surgeon and an ENT.  I leave the office waiting to receive notification of an authorization for seeing an oral surgeon.  That was Thursday.  Today, Monday, I checked first with insurance.  They knew nothing.  I call the ENT office and they tell me to call the oral surgeon.  I call them and learn that they do not accept my insurance, so I call the ENT office back.  They tell me that they will follow up and call me back in a couple days.  Well, they call me back in about an hour and tell me that I needed to make the appointment myself and that they would try to help me with the cost.  So I call the oral surgeon’s office again and have an appointment for tomorrow, with a $140 payment for the consultation.

So the medical insurance claims that it’s a dental problem.  The dental insurance says it’s a medical problem.  In the mean time, I have had horrible halitosis for a year, constant sinus and respiratory problems, headaches, soreness in my mouth, bad taste in my mouth and endless frustration plus untold hours on the phone.  Will I ever get resolution?  How much will it cost?  How long will it take?  How many more phone calls, how much wait-and-see, how much more pain and discomfort?  I don’t know.  But I ain’t down yet!