02/24/2013 Emergency Dental Visit

Starting Late night last Thursday (2/20) I noticed a bit of blood coming from my mouth as I rinsed.  Nothing hurt so I let it go.  Friday, I went to work.  I noticed a horrid smell.  Nothing I did took that smell away from my breath!!!  It was disgusting!  As the weekend progressed, it got worse (how could that smell get worse!?!)  Then my gums felt inflamed and bleed so badly I couldn't brush.

9am Monday morning, The dentist opened.  I called and explained to her what was happening.  She said I needed to get in immediately.  She said the Lupus was attacking my gums and we needed to stop it immediately.

My lupus is in a state of flare at the current moment. During a flare it can and will attack organs and tissues including your gums.  She said my gums were as inflamed as they could possibly get.  When they get this inflamed, its a host for bacteria and that was the smell.  She said there is absolutely NO way to prevent this.  Lupus does what it wants, when it wants, to whatever part of your body that it wants.

ALSO, it took over 8 shots of Novocaine today for her to work on these 5  teeth.  These teeth are all root canals.  There are NO roots in these teeth.  Therefore, these 9 shots of Novocaine where just so she could touch my gums.  She explained that when the gum tissue is at such an extreme level of inflammation, it will not take the Novocain.

I woke up having NO idea that I was going to have to pay out of pocket $600.00 and sit in a dentist chair for 3 hours. This was only for the left side.  I still have to do the right side :(

If I did not do this, I stand a very very high chance of losing my teeth.  I cant imagine having dentures at age 35 all because I woke up one day with an auto-immune disease.

Today, she lasered my inflamed gums off and cleaned out what she could, then she filled the areas with an injectable antibiotic to stop the bacteria that was growing with the inflammation.

They also placed me on an extremely low dose antibiotic (which freaks me out, I don't believe in antibiotics.  I believe they do more harm than good BUT she said it was either my teeth fall out or I do this).

My dentist explained that my lupus has proven itself to be such an aggressive case that I will be required to visit her every 3 months.  She explained that at this point, I am looking at $1200.00 ($600 each side)every 3 months because this will continue to occur.