I sauntered along to the dentist this morning, convinced that they would be replacing a filling in my front teeth that has been causing me a bit of pain of late. When I arrived and explained how much pain I'd been in, however, things took a turn for the worse. A quick tapping of the tooth was enough to inform my dentist that the nerve in the tooth was dying and she needed to pull that sucker out, by performing a root canal.
Now, I'm not boned up on my dentistry, but I know the connotations associated with root canals, and I was certainly not feeling too good about it when she was talking about removing nerves, and "deep fillings". But, I am a man who does not want his teeth to be in constant pain, so I let her go ahead and drill into the inner depths of my tooth.
The first thing I noted was the speed at which the anaesthetic took effect. I have memories of being jabbed and sent out into the waiting room for a little while, and still coming back not fully numb. This time though, my gum was devoid of feeling within a minute. Then the real fun began. Using what I can only imagine is a wide variety of drills, she happily went away boring into my gnasher with bravado, and aside from the feeling that something was there, I didn't feel any pain whatsoever. Before long, she pulled out something long and nervy, stated its length, and that was that. Well, there was a bit more filing to do in my wide open corpse of a tooth, and that actually started to hurt quite a bit, but nowhere near as much as her yanking a nerve out of a tooth would be if I were not under anaesthetic, and definitely not as much as the pain I had been experiencing from my dying nerve in the preceding days.
So I don't really get what the fuss is about. A hundred years ago we might have had a legitimate problem, but science does great things, like letting a woman cut off a piece of my nervous system while I lie back unperturbed and think about my day. I was in and out of there in less than half an hour, after undergoing the main part of what is probably seen as the worst dentistry procedure. Since I've left I've had no pain, and my numbness had gone by lunchtime. So if your dentist utters those dreaded words, just go ahead and have your damn root canal. There's probably a good reason for it, and you'll probably feel a hell of a lot better afterwards.
My rating: 4/5
Now, I'm not boned up on my dentistry, but I know the connotations associated with root canals, and I was certainly not feeling too good about it when she was talking about removing nerves, and "deep fillings". But, I am a man who does not want his teeth to be in constant pain, so I let her go ahead and drill into the inner depths of my tooth.
The first thing I noted was the speed at which the anaesthetic took effect. I have memories of being jabbed and sent out into the waiting room for a little while, and still coming back not fully numb. This time though, my gum was devoid of feeling within a minute. Then the real fun began. Using what I can only imagine is a wide variety of drills, she happily went away boring into my gnasher with bravado, and aside from the feeling that something was there, I didn't feel any pain whatsoever. Before long, she pulled out something long and nervy, stated its length, and that was that. Well, there was a bit more filing to do in my wide open corpse of a tooth, and that actually started to hurt quite a bit, but nowhere near as much as her yanking a nerve out of a tooth would be if I were not under anaesthetic, and definitely not as much as the pain I had been experiencing from my dying nerve in the preceding days.
So I don't really get what the fuss is about. A hundred years ago we might have had a legitimate problem, but science does great things, like letting a woman cut off a piece of my nervous system while I lie back unperturbed and think about my day. I was in and out of there in less than half an hour, after undergoing the main part of what is probably seen as the worst dentistry procedure. Since I've left I've had no pain, and my numbness had gone by lunchtime. So if your dentist utters those dreaded words, just go ahead and have your damn root canal. There's probably a good reason for it, and you'll probably feel a hell of a lot better afterwards.
My rating: 4/5
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