You may remember that back in the beginning of December, I managed to break my tooth on a granary sandwich (don't laugh!) and the whole corner of my tooth came off. Well, at long last, after my temporary filling had held up well over the festive season, I went to the dentist to get it repaired yesterday. My dentist was actually on leave for the whole of December, so I saw another dentist in the same practice for the temp filling & she said that the tooth probably had a hairline fracture as it contained an old, large filling which probably explained why it had been so sensitive to hot & cold. She said that when I got it properly repaired my dentist would probably drill out the entire old filling & replace it, or alternatively she could just repair & build up my tooth as it was. So, with anticipation & dread I ventured out yesterday morning. My dentist said she would probably go for the repair/build up the tooth option because my tooth contains such a large, deep filling - if she tried to drill it out the whole tooth would probably crack into pieces! :o( So, she had to remove what was left of the temp filling & to do that she gave me not one, not two, but THREE injections! The worst bit in my opinion. She wasn't particularly gentle either - I nearly hit the ceiling all three times! She did the repair which seems to be ok, but why on earth did she need to give me 3 injections unless she was planning to drill out the entire tooth? It seemed totally unnecessary to me. My mouth was numb for nearly FIVE hours! Plus when the numbness wore off I was left with aching gums & a splitting headache too.
Thankfully I had some light relief yesterday evening. I went with my friend Sarah & her daughter Jenny to see Vanity Fair at the cinema - my first visit to the 'flicks' this year, despite there being lots of films I'd really like to see at the moment! VF was quite good, there's a few sort of Bollywood moments in it, which I'm not sure totally fit in to a film of this genre, but on the whole it was most enjoyable. And as my mouth was back to normal, it meant we could tuck into some delicious Baskin Robbins ice cream too!! :oP
5 comments:
Poor Sam!! 3 shoots!! that's too much, IMHO...
But at least your tooth is repair now... and you had a nice evening with your friends ;)
Hugs from Mexico
Oh man! I'm sorry you had to deal with that. Those shots shouldn't have been so bad for you. My dentist advertises that she "caters to cowards" and I'm a big one LOL! She's great with numbing the area for a while before giving me the shot so that I feel a little pressure but that's about it. Maybe you could try looking around for somebody who does that? Going to the dentist is trying enough without having extra and unnecessary pain. I'm glad your tooth is better after all that.
Yikes! That sounds like quite a visit to the dentist!
Glad you got to reward yourself with a movie and ice cream :)
Was it a bottom tooth? The 3 injections could be explained by the fact that it is hard to get the freezing in the right place on the bottom. Unlike the top where the bone is more porous and the freezing filters through easily, the there is a very narrow opening on the angle of the mandible through which the freezing has the pass in order to reach the nerve. And to make matters more complicated, not everyone's little opening is in EXACTLY the same place. Dentists just have to take their best shot ( pun totally intended ).
Having worked for 10 years as Dental Assistant I have seen plenty of otherwise theoretically easy freezing jobs become tricky fast. Mainly due to the patient's anatomy.
Yes it was a bottom tooth. I've had work on that tooth before & don't ever remember having 3 injections before :o(
Unfortunately dentists are very hard to come by in the UK. Mine is an NHS dentist, which is about a third of the price it costs for a private dentist. The only way of changing my dentist is by going private as there are queues a mile long for any dentist that takes on any NHS patients. I get a new dentist now once a year as I have what I can only presume is a new dentist in their first practice who then moves elsewhere. I've had 4 new dentists in 4 years!! Prior to that I had a wonderful dentist for 12 years who sadly moved away from the area.
Post a Comment