When I was 32 weeks pregnant with my young daughter I awoke one night with some dreadful tooth pain on the right side. I took Tylenol and spent the rest of the night tossing and turning, trying to not aggravate the throbbing. This was the first time in my life I had a dental issue that caused me discomfort.
That morning I began dialing dentist offices. We had just moved a few months prior and I hadn't yet found a new one for a cleaning. Perhaps if I had this little issue wouldn't have come to the head it did. I'll spare you the details, but that visit led to two root canals, crowns and several thousand dollars out of my bank account despite having dental insurance.
On August 1st, I visited that same dentist. Incidentally I had developed the biggest crush on him whilst pregnant. Call it heighten senses or hormones, whichever you prefer, but when he spent elongated periods of time leaning over my face, he just smelled so good and felt so warm. He was so nice and considerate of my comfort. He touched my arm. I loved him. My crush has since waned, though. I've met his extremely sweet and nice wife and their son, who is only a few weeks older than my daughter. I'm no home wrecker, even on an "in my head" basis. LOL
So anyway, I recently went for a cleaning and x-rays when Dr. Cutie told me that I had a cavity. Today I went and had it filled.
Upon beginning the appointment I chatted up the tech, contemplating not getting novacaine. I'm not a fan of the numb mouth feeling for hours afterwards. She looked apprehensive and said, "It's a multi-surface filling. Have you had one before? You may want to talk to the doctor about this."
When the doc entered, we talked about it for a second and urged me to go with pain relief, but he'd use a version of it that wears off quickly. I agreed and we proceeded.
Literally 3 seconds into the drilling I felt pain. I tried to let it slide, but in grand dentist style, he kept needling the one nano-spot that hurt like hell. I guess he saw me wince, stopped and asked if I was okay. With a huge rubber block in my mouth (to "rest" my jaw on - HA!) and gauze, I said, "not really." I took the jawbreaker out, thought about it for a second, and decided to let him continue and promising to bite him very hard if it got too bad. For the next 10 minutes - which felt like about an hour - I did my best to do some relaxation breathing, pleasant imagery and lectures to myself about how if I could get through childbirth unmedicated I could deal with this.
Wwwwwweeeeeeeeee, wwwwwwweeeeee - that drill spun round and round the nerve of that tooth. I prayed for it to be "almost done" just about as quickly as it started. When it was done, out came the grinder and this is where my amnesia comes into play.
How in heck could I have ever forgotten about this torture device? It rattled my brain, inflamed a sinus or two and roughed up that poor nerve. In through the nose for a count of eight and out for a count of eight. Innnnnnnnnnnnnnnn....Ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut... Relax your shoulders. Relax our jaw. Ignore the feeling of a nerve being ripped up. Innnnnnnnnn...Ouuuuuuuuuuut... Please God let this be over soon. OUCH! Imagery - think of the beach. Waves of calm are rushing over me. Innnnnnnnnnnnn....OUCH! In out in out....Innnnnnnnnnnnnnnn...
I left there feeling strongly that I used to like this man much more before today. My appointment lasted about an hour. I cursed myself on the way to the car. My momorable mention today goes to novacaine and the maximum doses folks can get. My mother was watching my girlies while I went to the torture chamber and I've made her promise me if I ever need to get another tooth filled that she will remind me that to take all pain relief offered to me. Seriously, who in their right mind wants to hold off on numbness when dealing with dental work? Amnesia. Hmph.
I'm off to take some Motrin, which deserves its own momorable mention. God help me if one of my children ever need a filling while they are still pretty irrational. It'll be hard for me to say "It won't hurt!" I'll be pleading for sedation dentistry for them and just plain old sedation for me.
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