Yesterday I went in to Thomas J Chapman, DDS, PC, to have a mouth issue repaired. As you can see in a picture later, the gum around my lower left front tooth has receded. It's been going on for a couple of years. Not too painful yet, beyond the occaisional bleeding gum, but it would keep receding and getting more painful over time if I didn't do anything, so here it is. And I have had a self-imposed moratorium on eating corn-on-the-cob or ribs or anything similar to that which could hit the receding gum and not feel all too good.
The actual surgery itself took about an hour. Basically, cut the donor graft from the roof of my mouth and put that over the receding area. Sounds simple enough. But (isn't there always one?) it involved copious amounts of local anesthesia to numb the gum area to be repaired and also numb the donor location on the roof of my mouth.
Here, the assistant is taking a mold of my upper mouth so they can fashion a clear plastic guard that covers up the donor site so no food or anything else comes in contact with the area. To get the graft the doctor cut the 1/2" by 1/4" piece from the mouth roof surface so there is no flap of skin or whatever to help heal the area. It's just an open wound until it heals. And in the mouth that could take a while.
Here the goop is pulled out.
It did not taste very good.
I am cool, indeed, but the shades are their idea. There are scalpels and needles and other sharp things flying around so they are minimizing potential problems.
Below, cleaning the area to be fixed. Lots of blood.
Here is the photo in which you can see the issue. You may have to zoom in. Look at my lower left front tooth. On your right. You can see how the gum is lower than that on the other tooth beside it.
The instruments. And bloody swabs.
In this picture you see the graft. It is the red thing to the left of the white square. Not very big.
Dr. Chapman is sewing in the graft. It was cool to watch him puncture the gum again and again with the suture hook deal. Sewing the little graft in that little area cannot be easy.
Here's me & Dr. Chapman.
With all the anesthesia, I did not feel anything during the surgery. Except once, but he rectified that right away. When the anesthesia started to wear off, things got a little uncomfortable.
That's where things are right now. The donor area is kind of sore, but tolerable as long as nothing touches the spot (except for the plastic guard, which sort of cools the area). The place where he cleaned and sewed in the graft - doesn't feel all that great. We'll see how it goes!
Last night I had a couple scrambled eggs for dinner. Let them cool, then ate. And some ice cream. No chewing then, but today I tried chewing.
I will update later.
