Wisdom Tooth Crisis Triples Disability and Blocks Care

Day 3 · 1:36:20 · Carole Avoine · Myriam Bohémier

• 🦷 After returning to work, a wisdom-tooth emergency went untreated at three hospitals; she even tried pliers before extraction.
• 📈 The extraction spiked disability 300%, spreading spasms across half her head, throat, tongue, shoulder and back.
• ⏳ A three-year maxillofacial referral never materialized; another broken wisdom tooth still tears her cheek.

Dental complications massively worsened Bell’s palsy sequelae.

← Grade 3 Bell’s Palsy: Photos, Eye Tape and Daily Spasms | EI, Social Assistance and Fragile Return to 30-Hour Weeks →

Transcript

Carole Avoine · 1:36:20

I had I had a new job for about a year. Yes, but let's go back for a minute. So once you were paralyzed, you were unable to work for a year, and then you managed to return to work after a year. And what happened? So I had a wisdom tooth problem. I was told that due to my Bell's palsy situation, if I had dental problems, I had to go see a maxillofacial specialist. I did not have anybody I could talk to, so I went to the emergency room for my wisdom tooth, and they all told me that they couldn't help me, that they weren't dentists. So on the very last day, I went back home, and I'm very afraid of do— of dentists. So I tried to use pliers, and I went to my downstairs neighbors, and I told him to to pull my tooth out.

Carole Avoine · 1:37:23

It didn't work, and thankfully, thankfully so. But the next day I went to the dentist and they had to pull my tooth. And after that, I was off work for 2 and a half years. So what happened? So it increased my disability by 300%. So I had spasms in that entire area, and ever since my tooth was pulled, I have spasms on half of my head, and those spasms continue all the way down to my shoulder and my back. And then there's also what's happening inside my head. I have spasms in my throat, my tongue, my ear, my nose, And those spasms are so bad, especially when I'm tired or stressed. Those are the worst. They, they worsen my symptoms, and sometimes I can't talk, and it starts pulling, uh, on my tongue, and it's as if the inside of my head is trying to fall into my body, and it's extremely painful.

Carole Avoine · 1:38:41

So right before going to the dentist, you went to the hospital? Yes, I went to 3 hospitals. And you asked to meet a maxillofacial surgeon. And what did they tell you? They told me that they would ask on my behalf, that I would have to wait. And it's been 3 years since that request, and I've never had any updates. And now I have my last wisdom tooth that's also causing trouble. And I've had issues for 3 months now, and I've waited and waited, and at one point it broke on its own, and I had to put little sterile compresses between my cheek and my tooth because otherwise it was tearing the inside of my cheek. And I don't want to bounce around the story too much, so another piece broke, but I still have to wait for the tooth to fully break before I get better because I don't have access to a maxillofacial surgeon. So that makes things complicated.

Myriam Bohémier · 1:39:46

Okay.