2901

Any thoughts on what it was? I know people see blues sometimes around La Jolla and this time of year there are usually really big concentrations of soupfin sharksthere too.

2902

It could have been the soupfin or the or any number of non-descript brown or grey sharks which happen to be altogether harmless to humans. It definitely wasn’t a thresher (wrong tail). And it wasn’t a leopard like I said; wrong look altogether. Might have been a blue although they seem like much more of a deep water shark. Also, I had great visibility and I didn’t really get a ‘blue’ vibe; much more muted like a grey or brown. Might have been a mako (seen them from my kayak near the kelp lines) or a white (!!!) but all things considered… probably not.

I really do wish I could have ID’d it better; believe me. Fact is, my initial instinctual fear to head back to shore only lasted for about 10 or 15 seconds. Then I headed back out in the direction it was going to try and get a better look. Man, seeing a fish that big, that close, right at my local beachbreak was an absolutely breathtaking experience whatever the hell it was.

2903

I got my wisdom teeth out and learned that I shake uncontrollably during surgery despite not having any fear, anxiety or pain. That was interesting.

2904

I think I told my Army wisdom tooth extraction story here somewhere… ah, here we go.

2905

That sounds awful. They had to cut mine into pieces too, but it was about an hour and a half start to finish. They were impacted, sideways, and pressing on a nerve they shouldn’t have been pressing on. Fun times. I have percocet. I can’t figure out if it’s doing nothing or if the pain would be completely mind-numbingly excruciating without it.

2906

Whoa, you were awake?

2907

It wasn’t really that painful afterwards, I was just sore and tired for a couple of days and slept a lot. There wasn’t any sharp pain, my jaw just ached.

It sounds like yours was a little more complicated on the surgical side, though.

2908

Yes, I just got novocaine. They offered gas and xanax as well but I opted out. My oral surgeon doesn’t offer the twilight sleep for some reason.

2909

Yeah the oral surgeon said after that it was rather complicated and that had they not been bothering me, he’d have refused to take them out due to their placement against the nerve. Also apparently I have “an unusually small mouth” which made it worse. 2nd percocet + 1 ibuprofen in, things are considerably better and everything in my peripheral vision is a bit wobbly. The THEY LIVE poster on the wall is looking quite menacing.

2910

You are a brave soul. I demanded to be knocked out. They gave me the gas. If they had offered anaesthetic I’d have gone for that.

I’d have brought the machine and the anaesthesiologist home with me, if I could.

2911

I’m glad I went with local, I got to hear the oral surgeon yell “ITSA BOY!” when he pulled the first tooth and “AAHHHH MAZEL TOV!” with the second.

I’m also glad they went with percocet instead of vicodin. My feet tickle and my arms feel like happy.

2912

Heh.
I only had one removed, but that was also local and quite unpleasant… but I don’t want to be fully sedated unless it’s absolutely necessary for the procedure.

2913

My wife and I are conducting a War on Fleas around the house and garden. I’m not sure that we’re making much progress. The previous owners had five dogs, and they helped establish a population of fleas that have built their own Fleatropolis. Every dry season around July the fleas start to appear, and by September / October they’re unbearable for the dogs. Cue hundreds of dollars of ineffectual flea control on the dogs, and chemical warfare on the surroundings, but we’re worried that the fleas are developing Super Resistance - the sprays are getting less effective each time, and the fleas have even started sending shock troops into the house (where the dogs are forbidden). Plus I hate the concept of spraying this stuff around where it might enter the water table.

While nuking the site from orbit is starting to sound appealing, I’m hoping there’s a last, great hope of flearadication out there somewhere. I’m trying to get some diatomaceous earth which apparently is very good at dehydrating the eggs and larvae, but this being Darwin the typical shop response is “Diatawhatthehell? No mate, never heard of that.”

2914

You ever try using the Advantage, (not sure what name it would be marketed under there) the stuff you apply between the dog’s shoulderblades? When I still had dogs and lived at the beach, (a notorious flea haven) that stuff used to work great.

The chemicals are called Fipronil (in the US marketed as Frontline Plus) and imidacloprid (marketed as Advantage in the US.) When I was looking it up, there are some rumors that imidacloprid may be one of the culprits behind Colony Collapse Disorder, so I wouldn’t use that one.

2915

Miss your dosage for about an hour and you’ll realize it’s the latter. When I had my root canal done a couple of years back, I had similar thoughts. (Albeit with lesser drugs, I was just on Lortabs.) One day I fell asleep finally and woke up about an hour after the next dosage, and it was quite obvious that while the Lortab never made the pain go away it sure as hell served to keep it manageable.

(On a side not, neither the pre-root canal large hole in my tooth nor the post root canal recovery hold a candle to last week’s abscess pain which led to a follow-up apicoectomy on the same tooth. I spent two days feeling as if every nerve in the left side of my jaw was pinched for hours at a time; once over the entire course of the night. It was demeaning to go into the dentist and have basically nothing show up on the x-ray and get told “You know, this root canal looks really good. I don’t know why it’s bothering you.” Thankfully both the dentist and the endodontist were reasonable enough to not doubt my extreme pain… so one bout of office administered, amnesia inducing sedative, one inch of retracted gums, and one hole drilled into the jaws later I could at least sleep and even close my mouth so that my teeth were allowed to touch.)

2916

Yes we get Advantage here, and also Frontline. The shoulder-blade spot treatment never really worked for our dogs. However, Frontline Plus is a spray that uses Fipronil as the main ingredient, and that works pretty well - it’s an all-over body spray that you have to work into the fur. Kills fleas within a few hours and keeps them off for perhaps a week or two. Capstar tablets are even more effective - total flea death on the dog within 12 hours, but they’re back on there 36 hours later so it’s rather pointless. The real problem is the recolonisation that always occurs, and getting rid of fleas, eggs and larvae in the surroundings is defeating us.

One thing we have learned from all this is never buy your pet care products from the vet. They all seem to double or triple prices compared with industry outlets or online stores.

2917

Yeah…figured that out first thing this morning.

Gary: Do you need anything?
Me: Drugsss.
Gary: Your antibiotics?
Me: Noooooooo.
Gary: Percocet?
Me: EVERYTHIIIIING!

One percocet and one rx ibuprofen later, I can sort of open my mouth enough to spoon ice cream in :P Good times!

Whooooa@abscess pain, that sounds unbearable. I had about a half hour or so of nerve pain right before they started on my right side. They found a “rogue nerve” in a hard to reach spot and when they started shooting the novocaine into it, it felt like the whole lower right half of my face + one line up to my ear was being simultaneously electrocuted and shoved in a bucket of ice. Hours of that would have made me pass out or go crazy.

2918

Heh, same thing as far as the good stuff, just one has acetomenophin and one has ibuprofen as the backup analgesic. Be sure you’re drinking water with the pills, otherwise you can get a belly of happy that doesn’t turn on until you drink water, then you’re looped.

H.

edit: Oh yes, abcess pain. Check back in the thread for my story. Worst pain of my life to date, about 4x my wisdom teeth pain. The kind of pain where you just grunt and moan.

2919

Wow, my root canal was completely painless, pre-, during, and after. It was really no different than getting a filling, although i finally had enough Novacane to start the drooling thing a bit. Post root canal i just took a couple of Tylenol and that was

My wife and I are conducting a War on Fleas around the house and garden

Fleas are very discomforting. I got them years ago when i let a stray cat in during the winter. I did the D.earth, vacuum, spot treatment, and nothing worked. I finally just got insect bombs and over-bombed the whole house - amazingly, that seemed to do the trick and was much cheaper than the alternatives.

2920

I actually fell asleep – not from drugs, but from boredom – during my first and only root canal. They woke me up when they were done. Putting the crown in, though – that I hated.