I had a very fun day today. I visited my periodontist, and 45 minutes later I had stitches in my mouth. How did they get there, you ask? Well, it all started in high school, when I got braces.... It seems that sometimes having braces can later cause your gums to recede, in which case you need a tissue graft to restore your gums, or eventually your teeth will fall out.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that normally the periodontist will scrape tissue off the top of your mouth, or use cadaver tissue, and graft it onto your gums, in order to rebuild your gums and prevent more recession. However, since my roots were already exposed (and it was fun having them exposed), he had to do a connective tissue graft, which is a slightly different procedure. It consists of making an incision in the roof of my mouth and pulling out the connective tissue inside. Then, he pulled back the gums that were around the affected teeth (two of them, in this case), inserting the connective tissue he had extracted earlier, pulling the gums up around the tissue, and stitching it all up nice and tightly.

In 12 days, I will go back and get the stitches out, and then at some point a little later, I will go in to have the procedure done on two teeth on the other side. In the meantime, I have taken a lot of Advil today and have eaten very soft food (pudding, macaroni & cheese, and grilled cheese sandwiches). At some point in the near future, I will be able to eat normal food again, but probably not for a few days. I also cannot brush my teeth normally until the stitches have been taken out.

Below you can see two pictures of the finished product. The first picture is the gruesome image of the gums around my two teeth, and the second is the roof of my mouth on that side. I may keep you posted as the whole thing heals. In the meantime, enjoy the pictures, and feel free to send me get well cards, flowers, and maybe even money.

(Oh, and in case you were wondering why I titled this "Don't Make Me Laugh, Dammit!" it's because I was able to manage watching TV relatively painlesslly, until I saw a commercial for the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and he said something that really cracked me up. Laughing is painful in this condition. So, seeing that I was in pain from laughing, Jim has taken this opportunity to try to find ways of making me laugh all day long. What fun.)