My teeth have been deteriorating ever since the radiation (I know, big surprise). I'd already had the top front four replaced with crowns and posts, and it was time for the bottom four to go the same way. Except my dentist wasn't comfortable with her ability to manage it and suggested I see an oral surgeon for that. Well, he took a look at my mouth and the x-rays (once they finally sent them) and decided I needed all my teeth out. They talked back and forth on it, and that's the consensus they came to. NOT what I was mentally prepared for, as you can imagine. I know this can happen, but I thought I had more time.

Of course they are recommending the hyberbaric treatments, and after going back and forth with getting three different offices on board and then jumping through more hoops, we went ahead and started with those this week. Except ... my body is not tolerating them well. It's not just the ear pressure thing. Barometric pressure changes are a migraine trigger for me ... so there's headaches. I have a severe panic disorder ... which this whole situation is triggering. And the pressure seems to be setting off my new diagnosis of trigeminal neuralgia as well ... the pain is the same pain. Except, I was reading in someone else's thread, and those symptoms sound rather like the osteonecrosis symptoms as well. (My neurologists have been VERY poor ones, and not prone to taking into account my whole medical history.)

So now I'm having straight up panic attacks about the whole thing. I'm pretty sure the no-teeth, getting-dentures is unavoidable at this point because my teeth really are that bad. But if the hyperbaric process is causing me so many other physical complications (can't eat because of nerves, and we all know that calories help healing, for example, and no, I can't just make myself eat), I think I'm setting myself up for more danger after the surgery than if I just go have it now, while my body still has some reserves to fight with. Three more weeks, or more given the holidays, of panic attacks will make me very sick indeed. I've been through this kind of thing before. I won't have anything left to heal with.

It's been so long since I visited that I can't even recall what my signature line will say when this posts. But if anyone has had the full extractions and dentures done, and can talk me off this ledge, or give me advice, or ANYTHING ... it would be greatly appreciated. I feel like I'm walking into all these appointments knowing more than my doctors do ... and I don't know much, so that's scary. None of them are looking at me as a whole patient and trying to see what's best for Kristen, they're just going by a checklist of 'this works for most folks'. I am terrified.

Thank you for reading, and I appreciate any information or insight or comfort you have to offer.