Brace yourselves

I'm back from the specialist with surprising news. Not only has he never seen a resorbtion like this, they're not sure how fast it is moving. There will certainly be a root canal, soon, and a technique to follow that could likely save my tooth. The problem with the resorbtion, and I'm expanding on his kindergarten answer of "little guys eating other little guys in your blood", is that the cells responsible for breaking down bone cells, called osteoclasts (not to be confused with osteoBlasts, which build cells), have been activated in that region of my tooth/bone (See Mom, I retained my education). The reason for them activating is most usually trauma, but with the absence of a provoking factor and the apparent speed with which my tooth is being deconstructed by my own cells, we seem to need to move swiftly.

Without going into too much gory detail, the original solution was going to be cuttin back my gums to expose the hole and filling it after the root canal. But, the periodontist told me, the gum may never fully heal, leaving a giant gash in my smile. That would suck.

This specialist wondered what an orthodontist might think about moving the tooth down to fix it, then putting it back. He not only moved with urgency but called the orthodontist next door, who I had seen previously to discuss braces, about the idea.

She thinks it will work, but there is no guarantee it will stop the resorbtion process, meaning in the end they may have to pull the tooth anyway. however, I was needing to get the braces anyways and she is willing to include this treatment in the original quote and plan we worked u pa few months back. So, I will be getting braces soon after returning from England, most likely, to not only fix a glitch with my teeth, but hopefully save the tooth and my smile. Plus, if they want to pull the tooth now, they advise against orthodontics until all the roots are where we want them to be.

Now it's just looking forward to the root canal. Yeah.