Four years ago I wrote about my first experience with a gum graft procedure to address an area of severe gum recession and associated bone loss in my mouth. That post was particularly helpful when I had to prepare for it again, so I’m writing down a few more notes from this time around. Feel free to skip this post entirely if you’re not interested!
Back in 2014, the surgery addressed two of my lower teeth including a canine tooth where the recession was really starting to bother me. This time I had it done on three upper right teeth (a molar and both bicuspids) plus one of my upper front incisors…and I will probably have to do this again on the upper left side in the near future. I’m not currently having any issues — by which I mean I don’t have any pain or discomfort or even any significant sensitivity — so in that sense, the procedure could be considered preventative. But I’m hopeful that addressing the worst spots now will prevent bigger issues down the road, and when your dentist tells you that the worst-case scenario is that one day you lose a tooth due to bone loss, well, that kinda gets your attention.
I don’t have dental insurance because in the past, the cost of insurance was way more than I spent on a couple yearly exams anyway. When this second round of grafting was recommended last fall, I looked at my dental options again and couldn’t really find anything that would be helpful — in most cases, either the cost of insurance was so high that it didn’t actually save me money, or the coverage limits were so low that I’d still be paying a bunch out of pocket. So….long story short is that I waited until 2018 so I could dump a bunch of money in my healthcare flex spending account, and then paid for it out of pocket. There was a ~5% discount for paying cash, but it was still not cheap at all. I’m absolutely fortunate to be in a position to be able to do that at all, and it’s sort of appalling that I didn’t have better options, but I suppose that is healthcare in our country these days. Sigh.
One thing that did change in the last few years is the procedure itself. One of the things that I recall being the biggest headache last time — the fact that they took tissue from the roof of my mouth to then apply to my gums — wasn’t needed this time. That has made a HUGE difference in the recovery process. I didn’t have yet another wound, and I didn’t have to wear the annoying and painful retainer to protect the area. The highest point of pain this time was in the 2-3 hours after the procedure, and in retrospect I think that was more residual aches from the firm pressure and bit of banging around that was involved rather than the actual incisions. I started taking my prescribed NSAID (like Advil but stronger) right away, so that certainly helped. But they had also prescribed Tylenol with codeine, and I never needed it. When I woke up on Tuesday morning, for a moment I literally forgot about the whole thing — that’s how little pain and discomfort I had only 24 hours later. Hooray!
They warned me again this time that swelling peaks on the third day, and that seems to be accurate. It’s not too bad, but still noticeable if you look for it — I snapped this selfie this morning, and one cheek looks puffier than the other. (I can also tell it’s still swollen because that whole side of my mouth and cheek just feels a little odd. Not painful or uncomfortable, just odd. Tingly, maybe?) I should point out that there were several different actions taken to minimize the swelling, which I think were probably all important. I started a steroid pack on Sunday and will finish that tomorrow, plus I’m taking the afore-mentioned NSAID, plus I was militant about using an ice pack (on 10 minutes, off 10 minutes) on Monday from the time I left the office until I went to bed that night, and a bit again on Tuesday. I took Tuesday mostly off work (except for one meeting I did call into); I could have gone in if I had to, but I have plenty of sick leave and I think it was good to be at home where I could ice my face a bit more and minimize talking (i.e. let my whole mouth rest some more).
I went back to work yesterday and it’s basically been life as usual. Eating is still a bit of a challenge — I have eaten a LOT of ice cream in the past few days and STILL lost a pound — but it’s manageable. I can’t bite into anything, but as long as it’s not too crunchy and can be cut up into small pieces, I can eat as long as I just make sure I chew on the “good” side. On Monday I stuck to ice cream, yogurt, and soup, but pretty quickly added avocado, oatmeal, gooey macaroni and cheese, and more. Last night I was able to eat some pizza after cutting it up. Mmm.
I’m not supposed to do any exercise that would elevate my heart rate for 2 weeks, and I plan to grudgingly listen to that advice. Overall I am trying to stick to absolutely everything they told me to do, because I certainly don’t want any part of this ordeal to wind up being ineffective because I did or ate something dumb.
Three days out, the most annoying part now is just that I am usually fairly expressive with my face when talking, but I’m still avoiding big facial movements like smiles and laughs and grins that pull my upper lip up. This is partly because I want to avoid stretching that gum area right now, and partly because I have sutures on my top front tooth that would be visible if I smiled my usual gummy smile. As a result, I joked to a coworker yesterday that I feel like I’m walking around with a bad case of RBF. (Side note: The fact that there is a wikipedia entry for RBF made me laugh — but internally, not with my face. Ha!)
I go back in 2 weeks to get things checked out, then again at 6 weeks, then 12 weeks. Hopefully all continues to go well! Despite having this procedure twice already, I already expect to have it done at least one more time one the opposite side of my mouth. That’s a huge bummer. But if it helps avoid future tooth loss and implants, I suppose I should count my blessings.
Teeth are weird, y’all.
