#sore teeth

Some of it is almost certainly hypochondria, but I can't stop feeling teeth pains now. They're all on the right side of my mouth, but I can't tell if they're signs of cavities or if they're signs I've hurt my teeth via clenching or if I'm having wisdom teeth growing in again or what. I can't tell what's going on with my teeth. I really can't tell, because it's not like I have a dentist on call to reassure me or explain to me what's going on, honestly. I hate the teeth pains, but the mystery of it all is what makes me feel ten times worse than anything else.

The teeth that are sore seem to be in the molar region. I almost just felt a fear run down my spine that I was having a tooth grow loose and I really don't want that. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I'm really easily worked up about this stuff. Especially because one of teeth really does feel sore. I think I'm convincing myself I have a cavity with each passing moment, and I don't like that at all.

If I do have a cavity, I don't know how I'll cope with that. Last time I had one was when I was around ten years old. And at that time, I dealt with it really freaking poorly. They had to pull one or more of my teeth out. I agreed to take anaesthesia, because the idea of being awake while getting dental work of that extreme nature done really scared me. What I never counted on was how the anaesthetic tasted, however. So I woke up from being under. All my problems had been fixed.

But that taste… godawful. It tasted like powered strawberry or something, and it made me feel sick. I wanted to go home immediately because I felt absolutely miserable. But they wouldn't let me go home. So I had a massive meltdown, and I was inconsolable with rage. My mom tried to calm me down, and I lashed out. I kicked and punched and led a full assault.

My teeth are sore still. Up in the top right molar area, I think. And yet I still don't know if it's a cavity or if it's all in my own head. No matter what I do here, I feel like I can't win. But it's all stressful for me regardless. I keep getting in my own head, and I just feel miserable because of all this stuff.

I'm scared of having dental work done again. Especially since this old anaesthetic memory lives in my head. It's an old source of trauma, and I don't feel ready to face the fears head on and go down for another anaesthetic based dental operation. But I'm slowly getting myself prepped for the absolute worst case scenarios. I can't even think of a best case scenario here. I want to think of one, but I just can't. I just can't. It's really frustrating, and I'm getting myself all sweaty and hot and bothered again. I hate it.

I've been so worked up about this dental work thing that I haven't mentioned my consistent sore throats and dry throats and everything. For like the past few days now, I'd had a dry throat and a sore throat on a semi-frequent basis. I think it began on…I want to say last tuesday? I don't fully remember. But since it began, I've had a sore throat either every day or every other day. And frankly, I'm getting sick of feeling pains in my throat. The pains aren't enough to stop me talking, they're just enough to make me feel uncomfortable with my voice. And in a weird way, that almost feels just as bad to me.

I'm sure there's more paragraphs I could be writing now. But it's about an hour before bedtime for me when I'm writing this. I mainly wrote this because I felt I hadn't written anything sufficiently in detail to discuss my two newest issues. Because these two things are my two newest and biggest issues lately. The stomach pains are still there to a point, I won't lie. But this has helped eclipse a lot of stuff for me. I really, really don't like it. I just wish I knew where all these problems were coming from, and I wish i just knew how to deal with it.

Y’all I got Invisalign because I didn’t wear my retainer after getting my braces off and my teeth are killing me!! Also I talk kinda funny now.

— if you zoom in close you can see the “brackets” on a couple of my upper teeth, my bottom teeth are much worse lol

I'm actually stressing myself out so much that I'm actually giving myself some very, very bad stomach pains. My stomach feels tied into a giant pretzel knot, and it's stressful. I don't like that my brain is actually so panicky, but I actually know why I'm panicking. It's because I inherited hypochondria from my mom's side of the family, especially from my maternal grandmother and her side of the family. I don't like my maternal grandmother, but I know I probably inherited a lot from her. Her judgemental attitude is something I try not to keep, but I definitely have her hypochondria. And that's something that's just a pain to me each new day. Curse my stupid brain!

But you might still think I'm slightly blowing this out of proportion. Surely dental surgery wouldn't be so bad, right? Well, let me paint you a picture. We've gotta go back in time to my past. I was probably only just ten or so. I had to get one of my baby teeth out, so they had to put me under anesthesia and take one out. They did it, and I was able to let it happen while I was under anesthesia. But then I woke up. And oh boy. My reaction to waking up was really bad. I had a bad taste in my mouth, a really bad taste of the anesthesia. I had a fuzziness to my brain, and I was stressed and I wanted to go home. They wouldn't let me go home/leave the hospital room immediately (I believe my parents still had to pay or something), so I reacted by going into a violent rage.

My mom came over to try to calm me down, but I was too lost in a rage to even acknowledge her. Except that I either kicked her or punched her right in the face. I definitely hit her, and it led to her getting really mad at me. I eventually realized what I did, and then I felt like a piece of garbage too. It was just a horrible experience, and it always comes right up to the front of my mind whenever I remember that I might need surgery or something one day.

I was always praying that I'd never have to deal with this. I was hoping I'd be able to avoid going to a doctor to check for something that could require surgery. In 20 years of life, I've never broken a leg or an arm. I've never had to go to the hospital for anything major injury wise. I've never had to deal with cavities, beyond maybe when I had this one surgery or anesthesia experience. I think I've had pretty good luck with all of this stuff. But now that lucky streak might be ending. It very well could be, and that's scaring me.

If I need surgery…gods help us. I don't trust myself not to get mildly violent if I wake up from anaesthetic and feel super stressed again, mainly because that old memory of the anesthesia and my violence is formative and lives in my head for all time. I don't want to ever be in a situation where it can repeat itself, but it might be coming. It might be coming, and I think that's left me super on edge. I don't feel good right now, and I hate that. I hate that so, so much. sigh…

Somehow, my dentists office said they can see me and give me an x-ray in an hour's time. So me and my dad are going to have to go out and deal with that. It's going to throw off my nightly routine, but I need answers. I need them before I give myself panic stress and make myself sick or something. I feel like that's something I actually would do, and that's really not a good thing. I'm probably going to have to take a stronger anti anxiety pill for a while. Or I'm simply going to have to take the second anti anxiety med I have (the one I only use when I'm really, really stressing).

What answer do I want? Oh, that's easy. I want to hear that I won't need surgery. At least not until sometime in the future. I want to make it the rest of the year without needing to be put under an anesthetic. That's all I want. If wisdom teeth are coming in, I'll accept that. I'm annoyed it's painful and it's hurting in the back of my mouth, but surely I can put off removing them for a while. At least until college ends in April, or until after Christmas. That's what I'm hoping for. And if I'm really lucky, maybe that'll say that they're not even growing in and it's actually something else entirely (something less stressful).

Either way, I just want answers. I want answers, even if those answers do involve surgery. I don't want to have surgery right now, but I want to know what I'm really in for. At least then, I'll know that I'm not going to be able to get in my own head and worry I'm going to be going into surgery immediately. Or at least…I hope they can reassure me of that. I'm currently too afraid and on edge to think clearly about anything, but hopefully I can be reassured by somebody. sigh…

I have dead skin all over my body. All over. Dead skin in my hair constantly, making it so my hands can produce a snowstorm of dandruff every time I pick at my head. I've got dry and/or dead and/or just simply itchy skin all over. On my torso (back and front), on my face, on my hair, etc. The dead/dry skin in my hair always concentrates itself on my left side, for whatever reason. But the dry skin on other parts of the body are spread out pretty evenly between the left side and the right side.

I have a really sore wisdom tooth. On the bottom left, I have some real pains stemming from a really sore wisdom tooth. I basically had a panic attack over it yesterday. I still don't know why that wisdom tooth is so very sore. I've settled on the conclusion that it's sore because it's having more growing pains, but I can't actually prove any of that. All I know is that it really hurts, and it's really stressing me out.

I keep trying to tell myself it's just some soreness in the gums, or that it's just the wisdom tooth growing in. But I keep worrying it's a sign of all sorts of things. Things like cavities or the wisdom tooth growing in wrong or any number of other things. It really stresses me out, and yet I just can't help worrying about it all. It's been two days of this now. Two days. sigh…

It's been rainy all week. All week the weather has been exceedingly dark and depressing. All week these weather conditions have been affecting my mood. So that's been helping with absolutely nothing. It's just been helping to make me depressed and tired.

My stomach pains are remaining an ever present thorn in my side. Almost every day I seem to have at least one bout with stomach pain, and that's really freaking frustrating. Really, really frustrating. I don't have a ton of words for this problem (I'm struggling with writing about the other ones as is). But this has been stressful, and it's just one of many problems I have right now. The hemorrhoids are still there too, by the way. Just in case you were wondering.

I've had some new things crop up in relation to the stomach cramps and everything, too. I've had a lot more gas lately, I feel like. And my stomach has been grumbling a lot more often for unclear reasons. I don't understand why I've developed all of these problems (similar to how I don't understand why my sore wisdom tooth is so sore), but I can't help worrying nonetheless. It almost makes me feel sick, but I don't understand why. I just really don't like it. I really don't like it.

I've been feeling uncomfortable in my own skin a lot lately. Not in any way where I feel concerned by it, but moreso just in the way I always occasionally seme to feel. There are just somedays where I'll wake up and feel uncomfortable in my own skin. Those days happen. Sometimes it's because I've got a lot of dry skin. Sometimes it's because I'm just irritable. Sometimes it's my facial hair that gets to me and I wind up obsessing over it. There's tons of reasons for my issues here. But lately, I just feel like I've had these feelings of discomfort more often. And that's why I feel better getting it all off my chest.

College ends this week. Today (this thursday) was the last day where I had to go to an in-person class. I went, and the stupid class was only one hour long. One hour. One hour and then nothing. At least high school had more than one class a day, and at least it offered stability. College really doesn't feel like it offers that.

In class they were discussing how the third semester would work next semester. And I can't really say I was fond of the description I was getting. Honestly, I was finding myself more frustrated and nervous than anything else. It doesn't sound like next term would be any more consistent or better organized than this term was, so I just really don't feel any enthusiasm here. It's depressing to admit that, but it's true.

These are only six of my problems. I definitely have more issues on my plate besides just these six things. But these six were the easiest ones to come to mind, largely because they're currently some of my biggest issues. My mood being off, my worries about the future and about college, my stomach pains and tooth pains and everything else. I have tons of problems like this right now, and to assemble a list of all the problems I have would probably take me forever to deal with. There's just a lot on my mind, I suppose. I could've mentioned my congestion and everything else. But again, I just have too much on my mind. sigh…

My dad brings up a depressing but very likely possibility, though. He said that this all could be allergy based. And sadly, that feels way too realistic. I've heard that allergies continue to get worse and worse for people because of climate change. And I'm just really scared that I'll be stuffed full of phlegm and stuff for the rest of my life. I hate it so, so much.

I'm really worried about my teeth too, as I've mentioned earlier. I know I may be having more growing pains from the wisdom teeth or something. Can I still have after five months? Because I had these growing pains begin in November or December, and I don't know why this is still hanging around with me. I really don't like how it feels. It's awful, but I'm trying not to work myself into a blind panic about it. It's not easy, but I'm really trying.

I feel like I could write more about my teeth and my fears and everything, but a bunch of tv shows begin soon. I want to watch them with my dad, and I want to have my consistent nighttime snack. So I'll end this here, and hopefully I can not panic about my teeth for long enough to enjoy eating. And hopefully my therapy appointment tomorrow goes well. For now, I'll just put all thoughts of being sedentary out of mind.