I had an appointment scheduled with my dentist for April 11th. Considering the amount of discomfort I've been in, I was happy to be put on the call-list and called Wednesday to come in on Thursday morning.
I made my way to the dentist that morning a worked up, nervous, and frankly scared state. I didn't want a root canal. I'm way too young for those kinds of mouth problems already. Aren't I?
And the thought of more pain had my stomach in knots.
He comes in, take an x-ray of it and then examines it while explaining it to me. Turns out, I have a 'freaky' pulp top in that tooth. Weird. Also, I had an abscessed area at the very bottom of my root. Apparently, he thought that was weird too, said most of the time it's at the base of a tooth or around a root/nerve somewhere. Mine was literally at the very tip of my root end.
It had, in fact, starting killing the nerve in the tooth.
He didn't really have much of a reason why it happened. I brush, several times a day. I floss 3-5 times a week. He chalked it up to just the types of acids and bacteria some people have in their mouths. He didn't seem to want to mention the fact that he did work on this same tooth ignoring that whole "freaky" pulp thing.
So, he was going to start the root canal. A few complications occurred. One being that when he started drilling on the tooth, I could feel it. I jerked back and told him I could feel that. We had somewhat of a disagreement as he in a way told me there's no way that I could, that he'd numbed the nerve. He offered me a blindfold and ear plugs. I argued back, I could feel it.
He asks the little nurse lady to go get something. He said it would de-pressurize my tooth. When he did that, I felt little pricks. I jerk again and tell him to do whatever he's got to do, but that I'm not letting him drill into the nerve and root of my tooth while I can feel it. He asks me to explain the pricks and when I announce that there had been five, he looks at me in shock. He admitted to feeling bad about the whole thing, and gave me some more numbing stuff.
After that he got to work again. Which brings me to the second complication: the infection wasn't completely gone. D'oh. My irritation is already high. Apparently he was getting a lot of fluid still oozing up. So, he couldn't do the 'real' root canal.
Instead, he shoved these little things down into the holes where he'd already scraped and drilled out the nerve in my tooth, and put a temporary filling on top of it. I'm to go back on my original date of April 11th to 'finish things up.'
Fury. Rage.
I'm debating on just going somewhere else all together.
He told me that technically I shouldn't have a toothache there anymore, because the nerve is gone, but that I might feel some soreness due to the procedure and leftover infection/inflammation.
He under-exaggerated that. It hurt so bad when the feeling did come back to my mouth and all day Friday and even still today. So sore! It's true, it's not like an achy kind of hurt, it's like a soreness kind of hurt. It's no longer sensitive to heat/cold, but pressure sensitivity is jacked way up there. I can't chew anything on it. Not even like bread!
Gah!
Maybe it'll wear off soon.
p.s. What's with the June weather in March? Oh well, at least it's pretty outside :)
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