Share My Root Canal Hell

I want to write about something else right now but I need to come back to it because there are 2 good things I want to tell you about right now. So I'll come back to why I'm going to hell.

So I went to the dentist yesterday about my sore tooth. A little history about my life with the dentist: 1. I am part British--the part that is attached to my teeth. As a child I had multiple cavities and even had to have teeth removed. I have never liked the dentist. I know no one did but I had special reasons. One emotionally abused me by telling me I salivated more than any other patient he had ever had. (Later I realized this could be turned into an asset with my especially close male friends.)

Also as I've previously mentioned, novacaine doesn't work properly on me. Only, since my whole life it never has, I always thought that was just the way it was . . . Imagine my joy at finding out (in my mid-twenties) that some people just don't react to lydocaine? The dentist said we'd do carbocaine, which is stronger.

Nope. Doesn't work either. Sometimes it works a little. Sometimes it dulls things. I told the dentist it didn't work the first time so he stopped, gave me another excruciating shot with the ginormously long and SCARY-LOOKING needle. Still didn't work. He sighed, stopped again. Shot again. Still didn't work.

He asked again if it was working. I made an affirmative grunting noise. It was a lie. At this point, I decided that despite the pain of actual drilling, if I could just shut up about the pain again like I had all my life I could be out of the damn chair much sooner and not be loaded up with novacaine that wasn't even working. Hence, I most often feel everything when the dentist does a procedure.

A root canal? What does that feel like? Well, first there's the drilling. The very beginning of drilling doesn't bother much at all. Once he gets past the enamel is when it starts to really hurt. Just look up at the ceiling. Trace the crevices in the tiles with your eyes. DO NOT tense your hands on the arms of the chair or he'll know it hurts, stop, and bring out the needle again, as if that will help. Once he pops off enough of the tooth to reach the raw, exposed nerve, the real fun begins.

He pulls out this itsy bitsy file/screw crossbreed. This is to be inserted into the prong parts of your tooth, where the nerves live. He shoves it into the tangle of pulpy nerve, not realizing, of course, that you are feeling the whole horrid thing. He pushes it in good and deep and then proceeds to rip the nerves right out of the roots. He files and screws, screws and files. The pain is nearly excruciating. Blink a lot to keep tears from forming. Trace the crevices in the ceiling again.

He stops, looks into the tooth with his little mirror. Nope, missed some nerve. Gotta really screw that file in good and tight this time!

Finally, he is done with ripping nerves out; next he finds pins that are the right length to fill the hollow roots and keep the tooth stable. He tries out a few different sizes, putting them into the now nerve-free root. Yay, you might think. No more pain! Well, you would be wrong. He inserts the pins into the root and they go down deep enough to connect with the nerves that are running through your jaw. Take that, jaw nerves! How do you like getting stabbed with a little needle over and over? Not so much, huh?

So when it was done, I came home and decided to spend the rest of the day high on vicodin. This is why I actually began this post several days ago and actually only got as far as the ellipses; when I first started this post I ended up passing out in a drug-induced stupor. I had to come back and finish the rest when the trauma had passed enough to recount the incident.