Tooth Implants gone bad

In my previous posts, I mentioned that I had been feeling quite sick the past weeks. That was also the reason why, aside from being busy at work, I was unable to post blogs though I have lots of interesting things in my head to think about.

The past weeks when I felt like having a flu,I felt a pain in the left part of my neck and also pain behind my left ear. I also had stiff shoulder muscles. I had migraine and even elevated blood pressure and therefore when I visited my physician, she gave me some relaxant and suspected that I was just stressed at work.

Then I decided to visit a dentist and complained to him all the things I had been feeling. He did a CT scan and it revealed that one of my two tooth implants which were done 2 years ago was not done properly and was infected. He advised me to remove it. The problem I had was that it's crown was a part of a bridge which was attached to a healthy tooth and the crown of the other implant.

I went to another dentist and a third dentist for a second and third opinion... both gave me the same advise as the first one. The infected tooth implant should be removed as it was already affecting my nerves and muscles, etc. Now I know the real reason why I had been feeling sick lately.

To make the long story short, I had just came back from the dental surgeon who removed not only one implant but both. After removing the first infected implant, he found out the other one beside it was also showing some signs of infection and therefore he advised me to remove it to and I agreed. The dentist cleaned the jaw bone area where the implants were once located and also put some bone graft on the pits before stitching my gums close. The process though not painful during the surgery is now giving me pain. Thanks to the scalpel used by the dentist to open my gums just to remove the implants.

I am yet to talk to or maybe sue the dentist who did my "former" tooth implants two years ago. But while I am still thinking of how I would do it, I just wrote this blog to warn individuals not to just listen to or trust dentists who would advise you to have tooth implants. Think and study it first and ask around on the pros and cons. One thing important is also to look at the record of the dentist, because a few of them are just pretending and collecting big sums of money from clients who they know could afford to pay. This world is really not free from cons who take advantage of people;s trust just to earn money- and we could find them in whatever profession.

For anybody who would like to communicate with me on what actually happened and how and why my implants had gone bad, please feel free to leave me a comment and your email address so I could communicate with you the details. They were just too much to be written on this blog.

I am now on 5 days medical leave, recovering from the (quite a major) dental surgery at home with the help of antibiotics, anti-swelling tabs and pain relievers.

After recovering from this, I will have a temporary denture while thinking of whether I would still do another new set of implants after the failed ones or will just replace my temporary dentures with permanent ones. God please help me to decide!

Very busy and very stressed!

I feel so sad and bothered that I was not able to write my blogs the past weeks. I was down with a bit of flu-like syndrome and felt so exhausted.

I went to my favorite lady physician at the Raffles Executive Medical Centre and she thought I was extremely stressed. My BP was also slightly elevated (which came as a surprise for me because I am a health buff who watches what I eat and also exercises regularly).

I knew it was because of stress at work. My physician explained to me that stress may manifest itself through muscle pains, sleeplessness, exhaustion and elevated blood pressure amongst others. My oh my, I felt all these manifestations the past weeks.

I had been very busy at work that everytime I went home, I just drop like a log but on the contrary, I could not sleep well.

Well, that was two weeks ago... My doctor gave me some relaxant pills, gave me a certification to take a few days off from work and advised me to slow down. She was quite worried about my elevated BP so she advised me to monitor it morning and evening for two weeks.

I followed all her advise.I slowed down at work, took my "relaxing"tablets and tried to sleep well, and for the past two week-ends I tried to unwind as much as I could.

I went to Banyan Tree resort the other weekend with my son. We rented our own villa on the hill (overlooking the beach) and enjoyed the serenity of the surroundings, the beach, the food and our own jacuzzi amongst others. We also spent some time in the gym and the pool.

In addition, just last weekend, I flew back to my hometown to attend the alumni homecoming of my highschool (Class 76). I did that just to meet my former classmates, reconnect with them, recollect our teen-age years and just enjoy remembering happy memories of our innocence, naiveness, silly activities and adventurous learning.

Now I came back to work refreshed and feeling motivated. The past working days this week still offer lots of things to do, deadlines to meet, issues to resolve... but i noticed my mind has been clear so far and my logical, skillful thoughts just enable me to make decisions and take actions to make them go away.

Lesson I learned? To listen when my body speaks... If it is giving signals that I am already showing signs of being burned out, I should stop for a while or relax.

Our brain is indeed like a sponge, if it is already full of stressful thoughts, we need to drain them out before we could start using it again logically and productively.

And our body needs recharging too. We are not like machines whose parts could be changed anytime when they break down. Sure we could replace some parts but not all. And even if we have the money to have our broken parts changed, we do not know where to get the replacements too. Plus, the process could be difficult, if not fatal.

So now I am always telling myself...learn to stop, feel, listen to my body and be my own body's caretaker and best friend. It's the only one we got and we are our own (only)best friend.