Dental Emergency
While innocently eating chocolate ice-cream yesterday with my friend Chris, I felt something hard in the ice cream. I thought it might be a piece of ice, but when I retrieved it from my mouth, it looked a lot like a filling. After a quick examination of my teeth, I discovered that there was a rather large pit in one of my molars.
For those of you who don't already know: I hate dentists. I have had way too many "incidents" for my short life. I just wish my teeth could learn to get along with the world and quit all this death and decay talk.
My dentist's office is open 7 days a week, so I showed up this morning promptly at 10am with my fallen filling in-hand. They told me to come back in half an hour, likely so they could prepare the old rusty equipment. I returned exactly 30 minutes later trying to visualize anything that would take my mind off my impending doom: my happy place, puppies, kittens, having sex with Kate Hudson...but none of it worked.
As soon as I sat in the chair, I was reminded of all the horrific events I have survived over the years. I found it impossible to relax in any way, even though this weekend dentist was very nice and reassuring.
She told me that the filling had just pooped out due to normal wear and tear (it was 20 years old). She would have to freeze the area so that she could drill the cavity in order to "rough up" the surface so the new filling would hold.
I heard freeze and drill. Everything else was a kind of faint echo.
I was given the option of doing it now or waiting for my regular dentist, who would return from vacation on Thursday. That was too long to wait, so I told her to go for it.
She applied some topical freezing and got ready for THE SHOT. I closed my eyes, clenched my fists and hoped for the best. As she applied the needle to my gum, I felt this shock going through my teeth on the bottom right side of my jaw. It was much more painful than I thought it was going to be, and I was squirming around quite a lot. I think I might have been moaning loudly as well.
After the shot, I felt really really dizzy. It might have been because I hadn't had anything to eat in 20 hours or so, but I felt pretty bad. I sat up to collect my head, which was probably the worst thing I could have done. I almost fell off the chair as the blood drained from my head.
I laid back down and tried not to pass out as the dentist and her assistant dove into my mouth, drilling and filling, buffing and cleaning. After a few minutes my reality had returned to normal.
By the time I walked out, my old mercury filling had been replaced with a nice tooth-white porcelain one.
Actually, the drilling and filling procedure was almost painless, but the emotional scars may last for some time.
Damn dentists.
For those of you who don't already know: I hate dentists. I have had way too many "incidents" for my short life. I just wish my teeth could learn to get along with the world and quit all this death and decay talk.
My dentist's office is open 7 days a week, so I showed up this morning promptly at 10am with my fallen filling in-hand. They told me to come back in half an hour, likely so they could prepare the old rusty equipment. I returned exactly 30 minutes later trying to visualize anything that would take my mind off my impending doom: my happy place, puppies, kittens, having sex with Kate Hudson...but none of it worked.
As soon as I sat in the chair, I was reminded of all the horrific events I have survived over the years. I found it impossible to relax in any way, even though this weekend dentist was very nice and reassuring.
She told me that the filling had just pooped out due to normal wear and tear (it was 20 years old). She would have to freeze the area so that she could drill the cavity in order to "rough up" the surface so the new filling would hold.
I heard freeze and drill. Everything else was a kind of faint echo.
I was given the option of doing it now or waiting for my regular dentist, who would return from vacation on Thursday. That was too long to wait, so I told her to go for it.
She applied some topical freezing and got ready for THE SHOT. I closed my eyes, clenched my fists and hoped for the best. As she applied the needle to my gum, I felt this shock going through my teeth on the bottom right side of my jaw. It was much more painful than I thought it was going to be, and I was squirming around quite a lot. I think I might have been moaning loudly as well.
After the shot, I felt really really dizzy. It might have been because I hadn't had anything to eat in 20 hours or so, but I felt pretty bad. I sat up to collect my head, which was probably the worst thing I could have done. I almost fell off the chair as the blood drained from my head.
I laid back down and tried not to pass out as the dentist and her assistant dove into my mouth, drilling and filling, buffing and cleaning. After a few minutes my reality had returned to normal.
By the time I walked out, my old mercury filling had been replaced with a nice tooth-white porcelain one.
Actually, the drilling and filling procedure was almost painless, but the emotional scars may last for some time.
Damn dentists.
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