My trip down Dental Ave.

No root canal today (but for sure, some time soon there's a root canal in my future). More importantly, what I do have is a dental cyst - a big one apparently. This would be a hole (bubble) in the bone of my lower jaw, which apparently has become infected due to the dead nerve tissue in the tooth above it, which explains the pain in my jaw. A good thing, for sure - knowing why something is, and not just blaming it on demons or spirits or living a sinful life. A bad thing for my dental health.

Luckily I didn't find out the hard way: "Some people only find out they have a dental cyst when their jaw breaks after trauma (because the jaw is weakened by the cyst). " Thanks, Addenbrooke's, for that little bit of oh-shit-ness

Either the dead nerve cause the cyst, or maybe the other way around. Anyway, the doc said it might also be a granuloma, but it's difficult to tell from the X-ray (he actually called it a radiograph, and I don't know whether that's because he's an academic, or whether he was trying to impress me with his doctoring). The Wikipedia entry for granuloma sounds a little scary, especially when they have the context of Crohn's disease and syphilis. But I really prefer the explanation on the UCLA denstistry page: "A granuloma is a highly vascularized tissue containing a profuse infiltrate of immunological competent cells i.e., lymphocytes, macrophages, plasma cells, etc." I love the idea of immunonlogically competent. It's like they're cells that have a special trade-craft. Or a certification of competency, where the rest of the cells are immunologically incompetent.

So... for me it's more antibiotics and wait a few days... the best case is a simple root canal. The worst case is oral surgery (cutting my gum open) to remove the cyst/granuloma. Stay tuned, kids - it's looking like an eventful week.