(Post 232 of 263)

My mouth thawed quickly last night and it took me a while to realise that because I kept expecting pain even though I knew the point of the procedure was to kill the nerves! Around 9PM, an hour after getting home, I felt comfortable having dinner.

I went to bed around 10PM and I need to find out what is in my regular dentist Dr. Javier’s “happy juice” because I might have felt like it did nothing for me during the procedure, it must be the reason that I had my first really good night sleep in decades! I slept through the night, unheard of for me, and actually felt rested. Wow!

There was no pain this morning from the procedure, just a little sensitivity where I was jabbed with the anesthetic. For the inlay, the surgeon was very conservative and poked me four times on both sides of the gum, so my gums were really sore the next day. Dr. Victor, the surgeon from yesterday, immediately went with the notion that I’d need extra anesthetic and loaded up the syringe such that I only needed the two jabs, meaning a lot less gum pain this morning. So I felt great this morning, really not what I expected!

In fact, I feel so great I have to keep reminding myself I have a temporary filling on that tooth and I really need to be careful what I eat until I return on Tuesday morning for a check and then hopefully a permanent filling.

Could this dental nightmare be well and truly coming to a proper close? I believe it might be!

I’m also done with my orthodontic treatment other than having to wear a retainer at night (although I get a two-week reprieve while we sort out the bad tooth).

Needless to say, a new smile has been something to celebrate. Just before my Campeche trip, I found a hair stylist to cut and colour my hair now that there are so many more products out there for women with alopecia to manage their thin hair. Tuesday, I went back to get a touchup. It’s amazing what a little hair dye and keratin fibres can do! After two decades of wigs and head scarves, it has been VERY weird these last four weeks to go out bareheaded, but also very freeing.