Dentists

About a month back, I made a long delayed visit to the dentist here. The first procedure done was a cleaning. It's quite different here. It seems a lot more thorough, and as a result, a whole lot "bloodier" and a bit more painful. In the Philippines, most of the cleaning seems to be with that machine. Here it's a lot more with that sharp tool thing (pick?).

Then a couple of days ago, I had my 2 remaining wisdom teeth removed. I originally had 4 wisdom teeth, all underneath the gums. the top ones had a normal downward growth. The bottom ones were weirder, growing sideways towards the other teeth. I had one side done in the Philippines. Those weren't very fond memories. Let's just say I had it done around 2003/2004 and waited this long to have the other side done. So I wasn't looking forward to the procedure. Surprisingly, aside from the anesthesia injection, I didn't feel a thing. I wonder what they did differently? If only it was this painless in the first place, I would have had this done a long time ago. I guess it being a lot more expensive here is a factor. And Finding Nemo was also playing at the same time. Oh well, it's over now. Just have to get through the swelling. We can move on to the next Dental problem. Braces aren't covered in our current dental plan though. We'll deal with it when we clear other priorities. Crap, I'm going to be one of the oldest people with braces. Oh who cares, I'm married, no need to be cool :)

Lower Back Pain Update

My lower back pain is less now than on Friday (back then, I hated walking). But I went through with my doctor's appointment anyway. As expected it was a long wait. Anyway, he didn't seem to worried about it. He was thinking that it was a side effect of my job where I'm seated all day. He says the body isn't designed to sit all day. He advised me to stand up and walk around periodically at work. Anyway, he wants to meet me again in a month. If the pain isn't totally gone, then he'll run some tests. So for all those with desk jobs, get up every now and then. You should also probably look at ergonomics. The company where I'm assigned had a program about office ergonomics. What this website shows is probably close to what they covered. Anyway, I'm getting better now. Have to be more conscious about posture now. I'm not even 30 yet...

Lower Back Pain

This morning at work, my back started to hurt. I'm not entirely sure what started it since it wasn't bad in the start. It got progressively worse during the day. It hurts when I bend and do some other movements at the waist. It hurts for the first few seconds walking then subsides. It also hurts a bit when I go up or down stairs. I was thinking of delaying going to the doctor until tomorrow since it all seemed bearable. Until a few minutes ago, that is. I was having dinner and was sitting for a while. I also was pretty full. When I was done, it was very hard to stand up. It also hurt a lot more when taking steps. It was then I decided that maybe I should go to the doctor or hospital tonight. Mean tried calling the number of Health Links Manitoba since she saw their ad on TV. They could probably advise us on what to do since the waits at hospitals are extremely long unless it's a huge emergency (our doctor was gone for the day and the waits are pretty long there too). Lee, the nurse, asked me a bunch of the usual questions when trying to see what's wrong. She advised me to see how it if it subsides in the next 2-3 days and go to the doctor if it doesn't subside. Of course she said I should see a doctor soon if it gets much worse. In any case, I'm going tomorrow. By now, the pain decreased and it wasn't so hard to walk but it was still worse than the rest of the day. I would imagine it's pretty hard to diagnose lower back pain since there are a lot of probable causes and a lot of the symptoms are the same. I just hope this isn't anything serious. I'd be pretty depressed if Mean had to do even the heavy lifting here.