I got my Mom's teeth. My Dad gave his teeth to my younger brother, who has probably had one filling in his entire life, can go years without a check-up and still come out with no issues.
My Mom? She lost all of her teeth in her 40's, but not before painful root canals, extractions, and days of all of the curtains pulled, with us tiptoeing around so we didn't wake her.
With all of the advances in dentistry, I won't lose my teeth. But that doesn't stop them from doing their very best to make sure I'm miserable. Since I was a small child, I've had more fillings than I can count, surgery to correct an under bite, braces (twice), retainers (twice), crowns, and even the dreaded root canals (4).
So when my dentist found cracks in tooth number 30 (it's the second to last molar on the bottom right side of your mouth), they told me I'd need a crown. So I prepared to part with $700, and set up the appointment for last week. Prepping a tooth for a crown means a LOT of filing the top of the tooth down. That means the dreaded drill. Oh, and since I had jaw surgery, my nerves aren't in the normal places and there's lots of scar tissue, so where most people only have to have one round of Novocain, I usually have to have 3 rounds of shots before they can start.
So my mouth and gums were understandably sore and achy after the crown prep. But after day 3 where I couldn't bite down on the tooth and the cold and heat sensitivity started, I knew what was happening. So day 9 I called the dentist and said "I think you stirred up the pulp (I Googled it) and now I need a root canal". Of course they need to see you to confirm that, so I got to endure the dentist pushing, knocking, and putting cold things close to my tooth to prove that I was in pain. Only to get the referral to the Endontist.
This Endontist, Dr. Dazey, has done every root canal I've had done, and so I knew that I had nothing to fear - he's the very best at what he does, and I knew I was in good hands. When they found out that it had been 9 days of pain, they decided I was an emergency, and fit me in this morning so that I didn't have to suffer through the weekend. I wasn't suffering that much until the dentist knocked on my teeth to see if it hurt.
So Dr. D put something cold near the tooth, and when my right hand almost connected with his jaw, he decided that yes indeedy, a root canal was in order. I told him about my issues with novocaine, and although still not fun, he managed to make the 3 rounds of shots bearable, including the last round straight into the tooth itself. I had mentioned earlier that I guessed that I'd be missing Happy Hour this afternoon thanks to him. So with the (gigantic) needle inserted into my TOOTH, Dr. Dazey makes a crack about the fact that he was using the strong, long-lasting stuff, but he was sure it would wear off before Happy Hour. Not nice, Dr. D., not nice.
If you haven't researched it, a root canal procedure makes a big opening in the top of the tooth, which exposes the roots, which are filled with living tissue (pulp) and lots of nerves, which are the source of all pain. Once he has the opening exposes, he uses a file to scrape out the pulp and nerves from the roots. When he entered the pulp, he said to me "the pulp is bleeding". Then he followed up by saying, "and that's good, because it means that it's not infected".
Yeah thanks, but I'd prefer to think of the tooth as a big hunk of calcium, rock-like, that has nothing in it that BLEEDS. Luckily my mouth was wide open with a piece of rubber stretched across it, so I couldn't respond. And I thought that hitting him might make him mad.
As he looked at the roots, and living (bleeding) pulp, he said "I doubt very much that your roots would have survived, so your instincts that you needed a root canal were spot on". Thanks Doc, that makes me feel SO much better.
It is now almost 10 hours since the first round of shots, and even my lip is back to feeling normal. My jaw aches from keeping it open even though they gave me a bite block, and of course my gums hurt where the shots were. But the Tylenol I've been taking every 4 hours works so that it's bearable. The real test will be tomorrow, when I'll test to see if I can bite down on food on that tooth. I still have to be careful since it's a temporary crown, but the worst should be over.
I remember my Mother going through root canals, saying it was the worst pain imaginable. Whether it's my high pain tolerance, or the incredible skills of Dr. Dazey, it's just another day in the dentist chair for me. I'm not gonna complain!
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