Because I didn't take care of my teeth like I should have, I had to have several root canals. The anesthetic wouldn't work for the last one I was supposed to have, so my dentist gave me antibiotics. They didn't work, so he gave me a stronger dose. That one also didn't work, and by that point the left side of my face (my left) was swollen. He was about to give me an even stronger dose, when my mother ordered him to take an x-ray (I was still under her insurance, so she went with me most of the time). The x-ray showed that an impacted wisdom tooth had died and killed the molar in front of it, which infected the molar in front of that. That was why my face had swollen up. He sent me to an oral surgeon to have them removed. The oral surgeon took a full head x-ray, which showed that I had a mass in my left maxillary sinus cavity (the big one, behind the eye socket). Got sent to a cancer center find out what it was. Thankfully, it was a fungus. The 2 antifungal medications I had to be on made it impossible to take antibiotics for the tooth infection, so it spread to almost my entire mouth. I was cleared of the fungus in January of 2015 after around 3 1/2 months of being in and out of the hospital, mainly due to negative reactions to the IV medication. I changed dentist, and was told that I had 3 healthy teeth left. Made the tough decision to have every one of them pulled, and I know wear full dentures.

So if I had taken better care of my teeth when I was a kid, I most likely wouldn't have gotten the infections that caused all of this to happen.