[various random vile words]

Chronic pain. O how I loathe thee. Sadly, when it hits, I don't have room for much else in my head and this is an oldie-but-no-goodie.

See, in 1996, I bit onto an overdone hamburger while visiting the West Baden Springs Hotel (before it got casinoed), and one or more of the roots of an upper left molar punched through the bone. I didn't know it at the time; all I knew was it hurt like the dickens.

I'd set the stage by trying a dentist-prescribed bite guard to control nocturnal bruxism. Yep, I'm a tooth-grinder, reasons obscure (could you please vote better?). All it did was to allow Sleeping Me to get a really good grip and annoy my teeth, so I'd stopped, but too late. The bone was already weakened.

Had my first migraine on the trip back home and spent years following a path through multiple root canals, extraction, a big battle back and forth with dental professionals about there being a hole in the bone (there was, at a lousy angle for conventional x-ray shots to find) and multiple surgeries to attempt to fix it. (Not too successful.) Back and forth between M.D.s and D.D.S.s, who are remarkably careful of one another's turf and on and on. I'm out three very useful teeth and there's not really enough bone left to do anything about it -- but I can live with that. Done so for years.

What I don't like is that every so often, that much-abused section of gum will just...open up in a raw little sore. And hurt like hell. It did so over the weekend and it has been getting steadily worse ever since. Woke me up this morning. Naturally, it brings an uptick in migraine intensity when it happens.

Ah, well, I was off to the the M.D. this morning anyhow; maybe I can swing by the dentist, too, and make a party of it.

No comments to this one -- I'm just complaining. Trust me, there's no angle to this mess that hasn't been explored.