A Mommy Blog About Raising Men, Not Boys.

Saturday, February 22, 2014

More Root Canals Than You Can Shake A Stick At

I have now had five root canals in my life. One I've had repeated. So let's call that six. That seems like a lot to me.

My first root canal was almost 20 years ago. It was so unpleasant and torturous that I wouldn't let them crown it. It still is filled with the temporary they put on it back then. It hasn't given me ANY trouble since then and honestly I don't give a fig. It can stay like this.

Since then I've had other, better experiences. Clearly the technology has changed, and I've probably gotten better dentists over the years. I had two yesterday, and two crowns. Lately I've been so full of anxiety over anything medical ESPECIALLY the dentist, I decided to try this gas everyone talks about. People will say OH GET THE GAS ITS GREAT.

The gas is a lie.

Here is what I wanted. I wanted to feel calm. MENTALLY. I knew the gas didn't do pain management, but I wanted to not be freaking terrorized as they jabbed again and again trying to get me numb enough to drill. Did I mention I'm hard to get numb enough? I wanted to not be so freaking scared of the drilling that my heart nearly leaped out of my chest. I wanted not to feel like I was going to DIE in the chair.

Here is what I got. First of all it felt like nothing. No difference. Mentally, I felt like, NO CHANGE. No difference in the level of fear or worry or anxiety. I was still clawing at the walls of my mental cell. I did notice though that my heart wasn't trying escape through my throat. Small improvement. I wasn't clawing up my own hands, also improvement. But I didn't FEEL better. I wasn't less scared or relaxed.

When I got up to go to the bathroom I realized, I was PHYSICALLY impacted greatly. I felt like I weighed 500 pounds. I wasn't dizzy I was just sloggish. If sloggish were a word, that was what I was. I slogged to the bathroom, slogged back to the chair.

I felt annoyed. My bottom left molar kept stopping feeling numb. In the middle of drilling, this is not happy fun times.

I got home, and tried to eat a soft piece of toast by mostly gumming it in the spot where my wisdom teeth used to be.

My temp drown popped off.

I stuck it back on, and called. The receptionist told me if it came off again to come back.

Hours later, eating creamy yogurt, it came off again. I rushed back over, after 5pm, to have it resealed. They gave me a cement kit in case it came off again and said if it can't make it the two weeks before my perm crowns arrive then they will have to use a more perm cement and numb me back up to take it off. You can guess how likely I am to be ok with that.

Liquid diet for two weeks? Ok by me.