How to survive your root canal

Looking up ENDODONTICS brings up some horrifying reading, and just look at those DRAWINGS! (screams)

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The first thing you notice when entering any specialist's office: how nice everything is. My god, the money. It radiates. My fashionable endodontist (herein known as FE) has beautiful framed jazz posters in his office, what looked to be a Keith Haring coat rack (I didn't have time to inspect it carefully), and in the ladies' loo, beveled mirrors and a solid glass washbasin. The tiles are lovely, and look like marble or stone. I helped pay for all this, I thought.

Baby boomers' bad teeth--all that Dairy Queen crap, Hostess twinkies and Coca-cola, has paid for this pricey office.

I always demand gas forthwith, shocking most dental assistants with my fortitude (pump that UP, girls! MORE!) and astounding ability to withstand copious amounts of nitrous oxide. I assume there is a notation in my file (which I am told is one of the largest in the practice--ta dum!) that specifies "She likes a lot of gas!" or something like that.

FE has weird space-age, scientific tools that he employs, one of which looks like he is in a space capsule, wearing little goggles and looking through a microscope that sits right on top of your face. Meet George Jetson! I always bring some music along, and during this particular sequence I was listening to the Delfonics' "Didn't I blow your mind this time?" ...which, along with the gas, made it somewhat otherworldly and fun, for about 10 seconds or so. It hurt like a mofo, but I really couldn't differentiate the pain of the root canal itself, from the pain I have been experiencing for the past week--all sensation tends to run together into a steady stream of pain, worthy of MARATHON MAN. (Is it safe?)

Left: Fancy George Jetson space-age endodontics microscope.

The noise is positively harrowing, reminiscent of chain-saws and coffee-grinders; then you smell something burning and ... Clorox? Just close your eyes, and concentrate on the Delfonics. (Daisy's advice: nitrous and music, can usually get you through it. No strange or odd music; something familiar.) The filing of the root is where you start to feel, well, nauseated. WHAT is he doing? Oh my GOD.

Apparently, my infection had something to do with the bone (the WHAT? the BONE? Oh, holy Jesus, Mary, Joseph) and might get worse before it gets better. It could become re-infected, since the bacteria in the bone doesn't get oxygen and can multiply quickly, or somesuch thing. As FE patiently explained, I felt dazed. (Bone? Did he say BONE?) I kept thinking about how I'd like to just pull it out, but I couldn't say this to color-coordinated FE with his designer scrubs and shoes. He'd wrinkle his nose at me and make me feel low class. He'd be right, too!

~*~

This round, at least, is over.

Can anyone guess the price? The winner gets a free Daisy's Dead Air Bloglines subscription! HAHAHA!

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Listening to: Yo La Tengo - Moby Octopad
via FoxyTunes

The dentists all love me

Yes, the dentists, as well as their compatriots, the endodontists and the oral surgeons, all rub their hands with glee. Dollar signs light up the eyes. They clear their schedules, they work through lunch, they eagerly make follow-up appointments and call each other on the phone, consultating madly together, hemming and hawing in harmony and looking at my (very expensive) X-rays. Hmmmmm, they agree: It doesn't look good.

Not surprising. It never has.

Only two generations ago, people had all of their contrary, infected teeth pulled out--just pull them all out, said my grandmother. I used to wonder how anyone could agree to such a thing, but no longer. I totally get it. JUST PULL THEM OUT has occurred to me any number of times, but the suburban dentists I go to look shocked if you say this, and this is now apparently the equivalent of Dental Blasphemy. It's BAD for your jaw and your bite and all the rest of it. The problems just get worse. You are supposed to have teeth, after all.

I read about Chairman Mao, who had horrific, chronically infected, pus-filled teeth and endured awful pain, and I am inclined to forgive a lot. The poor man was under terrible stress.

Since this past weekend, I have throbbing pain in a tooth that already has a root-canal* and crown--never a good sign. Abscess? The tooth is, God help me, moving around a bit in my jaw (grandmother's voice: Just pull it out!) and there is what appears to be a "cloud" (what?) on the X-ray. The root is possibly infected, and the consult-a-rama has begun.

So, there they are, my dentist and and my fashionable endodontist, who wears designer scrubs to work. (At his prices, I'm surprised we don't get piped-in pharmaceutical heroin and live jams from Eric Clapton himself.) Yes, yes, they sing in well-known dental-harmony, it doesn't look good.

Follow-up appointment on Friday morning, which will make me late for work, then late for home, and a veritable chain reaction of lateness will ensue--all of which will make me significantly crabbier since I am in PAIN. Well, I thought, I possibly can at least lose weight since I can't chew anything... but no, I decided the one thing I can eat is ICE CREAM, and by God, I stopped to do some consulting of my own with Ben and Jerry on my way home.

I hope Chairman Mao at least had some ice cream to make him feel better, too.

*I've had 13 root canals in all, and I'm not sure how many crowns, since several have been replaced already.