He was not sure how it happened. The pain began two or three days after the dentist appointment. His teeth had to somehow have been sharpened like knives that were shredding the inside of his cheeks. He had only gotten a tooth filled on the top and one on the bottom on opposite sides of his mouth. The pain grew to the point that speaking hurt. He kept biting his tongue by accident. He tasted iron every time he spoke or ate. His parents had given him some pain medication to help but the pain never fully left.
He lasted a week and a half before calling the dentist. The business was closed due to Christmas break, but he managed to call his dentist’s personal number. He got the answering machine and left a message, explaining how his teeth had been hurting and how his mouth was physically bleeding as a result. He received a call back from the dentist two days later saying to come in the next day.
When he arrived at the dentist’s office, he knocked on the locked door but received no answer. He called the dentist’s personal number and explained he was outside. The dentist opened the door a minute later and let him in. They were the only ones in the building. The dentist checked his mouth and commented on the bleeding cheeks as well as the puss seeping out. They discussed how the dentist could not see any sharp edges on the fillings or any teeth being excessively sharp but was willing to help.
The dentist filed down some of the teeth and the result was phenomenal. The pain did not go away immediately but was immediately less intense. Talking no longer hurt. The dentist also pointed out that some of the back gums were covering up one of the back molars and could result in further cavities from the gums preventing proper brushing. He gave the dentist permission to cut the excess gum off and the dentist numbed the area before getting to work.
The dentist took a tiny laser and cut the gum out of the way. The dentist stuffed a roll of gauze into the area to stop the little bit of bleeding and cleaned the area afterward, along with the inside of the cheeks. The area felt different when he ran his tongue over it. The dentist gave him gauze, two bottles of a specific fluid to rinse his mouth out with for the next few days until the inside of his cheeks healed and told him to call if there were any other problems.
He headed home and found that his mouth did not stop feeling numb until eight hours later. He used the fluid the dentist gave him like mouthwash first thing each morning and before bed each night, applying gauze to the inside of his cheeks before sleeping. For the first four days the gauze came away orange or yellow in the morning but started coming away white on the fifth day. His mouth no longer hurt, and the inside of his cheeks were healed. He stopped using the gauze and stashed the second bottle away in the medicine cabinet for later use in case this ever happened again. That was an odd experience.