Lately, my numbers have been unexplainably high in the mornings and I believe it is due to an infected tooth I have.
This particular tooth had a cavity in it which was discovered in November 2010. I went back to the dentist to have the cavity filled in January 2011. That afternoon, I was chewing on a piece a gum and felt a pang go through my tooth. I thought I had loosened or removed the filling with the gum. The filling was still there but from that moment on my tooth was very sensitive. Any hot or cold foods or liquids that touched the tooth would send a shock wave of pain through my lower jaw. It would take a few minutes for the pain to subside. I thought maybe the tooth was just sensitive, which I know happens after a filling has been inserted, but the sensitivity would not go away. Then, a few times during the night, I would wake up to a throbbing pain in my jaw that hurt so intensely that I would just hold my jaw and pray that it would go away as soon as possible. One night I laid in bed holding my jaw for ten minutes until the pain finally went away and I could go back to sleep. This weekend I had had enough and made an appointment to see the dentist yesterday morning. I told him about my concerns (pretty much all of the above) and he did some tests. He blew air on the tooth, hammered the tooth, and applied a super cold swab to the tooth. The diagnosis… an infection that has reached the nerve. The solution… a root canal. Yucky.
Fortunately, I believe the infected tooth is the culprit to my high nightly numbers. I’ve been going to bed in the low to mid 100’s, but waking in the low to mid 300’s! Your body gives off sugars when it’s fighting illnesses or infections, and I believe when I go to bed, my body goes into fight mode to fight the tooth infection, thus raising my glucose levels.
I am extremely nervous for the procedure (which is in one hour, eek!) but excited to see if this is what is causing my high glucose numbers, and to get them back into range.
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