Half a New Mouth

I have survived the first of my major dental appointments to get my mercury removed and replaced with non-life-threatening materials. I had several nights of dreams about it before hand, and it fortunately went much smoother than it had in any of my dreams.

Yesterday was the appointment to work on the left side of my mouth, the more severe side. I had 4 amalgam (silver/mercury) fillings removed and 2 were replaced with resin/ceramic fillings, and the other two were replaced by onlays. It was a two and a half hour appointment, so I was offered headphones and music, but I torturously decided I'd rather hear what's going on. I have enough trouble with sounds driving me crazy due to the Lyme infection, so really the sounds of drills and other tools was better than drills, tools, and music.

The mercury was removed without incident in a special room with air purification and a big vacuum near my mouth to pull out the mercury vapors, and a guard was placed over my mouth with only the tooth being worked on exposed. Quite the experience! I will likely go back in the next few days as the nerves in my teeth calm down to get a bite correction. The onlays are still slightly bigger than my teeth were, throwing off my bite a little bit and making eating a little more difficult and uncomfortable, but can be very easily corrected. Then it's back to the dentist in January for round two on the right side of my mouth.

As I've been tapering off my Lyme treatment and Babesia treatment, I haven't been feeling as well. I'm still battling the fatigue more than anything, and minor chills/sweats and some joint pain have returned. I have also gotten off track with making sure I'm drinking a ton of water, so I'm hopeful that's the cause rather than a Lyme relapse. I have been pretty severely dehydrated, as well as having over-worked kidneys and liver with all the metal and medication, and trying SO hard to change habits and drink lots of plain water everyday. If only I had the energy to get up and refill my water bottle. :) It does seem like a vicous cycle sometimes.

Even in my weak moments, I'm still determined to keep things moving closer and closer to being able to return to normal living. It just seems like my pace has been slowed during my transition time. I'm craving physical activity more than ever...even making a mental list of things I want to start doing like rock climbing, taking Brian's tae kwon do classes, pretty much anything physical that doesn't involve running. I still hate running. I'm so looking forward to starting to work on that list, and it seems just barely out of reach. Mercury detox should start to move faster with less mercury poisoning me, and I'm anxious to feel it.

The glimpses of normal life that we've been getting this summer have been a beautiful thing, and something I'll likely never take for granted again!