Lantana flowers

My lantana still brings all the butterflies (old video) to the yard.

I didn't see many insects on the flowers earlier in the year and was worried based on what I'd read about the massive decline of insects in the wild.

But maybe it wasn't the right time of year, as now there are many on the blossoms. I still haven't seen many bees though. In the evening closer to dusk, there are more moths. There's a type of dark-colored moth with a big body that seems like it should be too heavy for its wings. I even saw one hummingbird on the flowers two days ago!

root canal, soft food

I'd been having sporadic sharp tooth pains while eating for the last year. They were very brief and didn't bother me much. My dentist didn't find the source but believed it could be a micro-fracture. I couldn't tell what tooth it was coming from, other than it being on the right side, and wasn't even certain if it was an upper or lower tooth.

But I had one filling in a molar, and that tooth was suspect. A few weeks ago, I got a very bad toothache; a deep dull throbbing with pain along the gum lines. It lasted a long time. On subsequent days, the pain wasn't as strong but returned on a regular basis half an hour to an hour after eating. It was odd in that it didn't hurt while eating, only later.

In retrospect, I wonder if the pain I sometimes get along my gum lines wasn't due only to gum recession, but possibly due to this tooth already having a problem for a long time.

So last week I got a root canal. The temporary filling has a rough surface which annoys my tongue.

I have to take two different antibiotic tablets 3 times a day for 10 days. The amoxicillin, I can swallow with water. The other, metronidazole, is uncoated with a rough surface. The first tablet I took nearly caught in my throat. Since then I've been crushing those tablets. The endodontist said I probably wouldn't want to crush it as it has a very bitter taste, but that it would be okay to do.

I tried mixing the metronidazole powder with orange juice. That tasted ok. Then I read that citrus juice might reduce its efficacy, so I tried it with unsweetened applesauce. That was awful. Since then I've mixed it with chocolate oatmilk, which ends up tasting like unsweetened cocoa. It's not very bad (especially if I add sugar), but I dislike having to do this routine 3 times a day and will be glad when it is over.

I'm also eating only soft food which doesn't need to be chewed, to avoid dislodging the temp filling. I've heard many stories of temp fillings coming out and even of the tooth cracking when that happens. Trying to avoid that.

At first I tried chewing only on the other side, but noticed how easy it is to stop paying attention and start chewing on both sides.

So. Oatmeal. Applesauce. Yogurt. Probiotic drinks, to help counter the antibiotics' effect on my gut flora. Mashed potatoes, mashed beans. Tofu. Hummus, baba ganoush. Smooth peanut butter. Ice cream, though it isn't very enjoyable right now. Pudding. Little cakes. I'm hungry. I'll be glad when I can finally eat corn chips again. My first appointment for getting a temporary crown is in two weeks. A video I watched on the process makes that part look worse than the root canal.

Getting the root canal itself wasn't bad. The dental assistant put a thick spacer between my teeth on the other side, which pushed my jaws distressingly apart. She also put a rubber sheet around the tooth which made it hard to breathe. I started to feel panic, but the endodontist moved the spacer to where it wasn't so bad, and cut away some of the sheet. Then the worst part was the continual feeling of phlegm in my throat, and lingering worries that I couldn't breathe well. The injections and the drilling didn't bother me.

It was interesting that it felt like an upper tooth was being drilled as well as the bottom tooth. But I had previously read about how that is due to the nerves: Why It's So Hard to Tell Which Tooth Has the Ache.

During the procedure, my legs and torso trembled and vibrated, which was strange. It felt as if my body was trembling with fear, even though I wasn't afraid. It must have been a side-effect of the anesthetic:
Why do I shake at the dentist?

One common phenomenon that patients may experience at the dentist is shaking or trembling. This involuntary shaking of the hands or body can be unsettling, but it is actually a relatively common side effect of local anesthesia.