Yesterday my ex-tooth was causing me no end of misery in the form of a constant sharp pain in my upper jaw. It was the kind of thing where if you thought about it, if you concentrated on it, you could make it worse, get it to really start throbbing. Doing the opposite, focusing on getting into a Zen-like state of calm, would minimize it, but at best it would become a constant background thing, kind of like someone mowing the lawn outside your window, except they inexplicably do it for the entire day without taking breaks.
I was given two things to help with the ex-tooth. Tylenol 3 for the pain–remember, Tylenol 3 is not like the over-the-counter version. It’s a narcotic and enough of it can make you quite silly. The other was the antibiotic to combat the infection. I was given a T3 and an Alleve tablet before leaving the hospital, then took the antibiotics about half an hour later, after getting the prescription made.
Within half an hour of that, the pain was gone. Not just blunted, but essentially gone. The area around the ex-tooth is tender and sore, but the actual pain is gone. Today I’ve been continuing to take the antibiotics, but no T3s, and the pain is still gone.
It’s actually a little unnerving how effective the drugs have been. It makes me wonder how often they are used to similar effect for more nefarious purposes. Mostly I’m just glad we have medicine that can do this kind of stuff, because trying to distract myself from pain is something I can only manage about 50% of the time. I’m like a half-monk. One moment I’m in deep contemplation, the next I’m distracted by my own weird train of thought, like “Don’t think about the pain, you’ll only make it worse. Oh, I’m thinking about it right now, aren’t I? Yes, I told you not to do that. Right, I’ll stop. Okay, I’m thinking about kittens now, not the pain. You know, that constant ticking pain in my jaw. I mean kittens. Adorable kittens. I am not thinking about the pain I just described. I am full of lies.”
Anyway, Tylenol 3 and antibiotics are my new best friends this week.
Next week, back to kittens.
