My visit to the endodontist yesterday (Tuesday) could be described as a success.  He confirmed based on my description of the pain and a neat diagnostic trick involving a piece of ice that a root canal was in order.  And the endodontist was able to immediately proceed…so long as I paid the deposit and signed my life away.

For a mere $1,450, am now the possessor of a gutted tooth.  Although I’m sore, the process itself wasn’t unduly painful or distressing.  The use of power grinders/drills was actually rather limited, and most of the process seemed to involve manual work with small needle-like files. I elected to spend most of my time during the process with my eyes closed, so I didn’t attempt to closely watch what was going on. 

Looking at the root canal entry on Wikipedia, which includes a picture or two of the files used, I can see the broach file more or less matches what I imagined he was using.  A tiny, pin like thing for going down inside the tooth core: it was all done by hand, and he kept asking for different sizes of files, all of which seemed tiny to me.  Tiny or not, the endodontist still had to put some elbow grease into the process- my jaw is sore and tired, and my entire face feels worn out.

I guess it will be a week or so before I feel confident that the pain is gone for good.  If it is, then the last few days will have been worth it.  I have another couple of “ordinary” dental appointments before I’m done, though- how much do you want to bet that another nerve or something will become involved?  I hope not…

I went back to my dentist today for a follow up regarding the pain I’m experiencing with the tooth that was prepped for a crown.  I’ve now been booked in to see a specialist on Tuesday: an endodontist.  I find it curious that an endodontist is a specialist (according to the Wikipedia link) in the “inside [of] the tooth”.  So, all that drilling, grinding and scraping a normal dentist does, that’s on the outside?  News to me: seems odd that it hurts like it does.  Apparently, endodontists are the guys who do root canals- I was really sort of hoping to avoid that, but the pain trumps my desire to minimize time in the dentists chair, I guess.

Anyway, my non-endodontic dentist pulled off my temporary crown, checked for infection (none), put some pain deadening stuff on my crown-prepped tooth stub, and installed my permanent crown using temporary cement.  “Don’t be too worried if it falls off: just call us and we’ll get you in right away to put it back”, he says: yeah, $900 worth of fancy ceramics falls off and say, gets swallowed or lost on the ground, I won’t worry one bit.   And I’m booked in to back to back weekly dental appointments for several weeks now…my worst nightmare.

The other thing he did was prescribe an anti-inflammatory.  It’s not one I’ve used before: Pms-Dexamethasone.   So of course I had to look it up on line as the previous link attests.  Interesting reading, particularly this part:

Psychiatric disturbances: Corticosteroid use may cause psychiatric disturbances, including depression, euphoria, insomnia, mood swings, and personality changes. Pre-existing psychiatric conditions may be exacerbated by corticosteroid use.

Oh that’s good to know.  Like I’m not already prone to mood swings: technically, I was diagnosed as “chronically depressed” about a decade ago, but I definitely cycle through stages.  Fortunately, Irene is away this weekend visiting her folks, so hopefully she’ll avoid taking the brunt of any odd side effects this might cause in me. 

I can say, however, that it seems the Dexamethasone has done some good, although I’ve only had the first dose.  I was getting to the point where painkillers were only taking the edge off the pain.  Note this is with me taking eight or so extra strength Tylenol a day, plus a couple of Tylenol 3’s if the pain woke me in the middle of the night (which has been happening most nights).  Right now I’m feeling pretty pain-free: a bit of relief is nice. 

When all of this started, I had one tooth which was more filling than tooth that had cracked and from which a small piece had dislodged.  I had no pain, and was well over a thousand dollars richer.  Remind me again why this is dentistry thing is good for me?

Yes, I know I’m whining- this is my blog, dagnab it, and I’ll whine if I want to!

I mentioned previously that I had some long-overdue dental work done last week on Thursday.  Post-dentist, it was relatively pain free.  Until Monday afternoon, that is, when it was as if some hitherto somnolent nerve suddenly awakened from its deep slumber.

To put it another way, I was in agony.  I’ve been taking far too many Tylenol 3s since then (they work wonderfully- it is like this is exactly the kind of pain they are designed for).  The most irritating thing: the pain is not specific to a tooth.  I can tap my teeth and get no twinge- the pain is radiating out through the jaw, sometimes seeming to come from the upper, sometimes from the lower.  A properly engineered nervous system would pinpoint the source of the pain- obviously, my body is defective.  So much for “intelligent design”.

On a completely unrelated note…I spend a few minutes each day checking out the collected and captioned cat (mostly cat) pictures on the “I Can Has Cheezburger?” website.   If you’ve never heard of this site and find it confusing, here’s the overview: for years, folks in various web forums have periodically created “fun” threads where people post cat or animal pictures with humorous captions.  These captions are generally written in a type of “baby” or “dude” speak: sort of pidgin English.  These captioned photos are sometimes called “lolcats” (Laugh out loud cats).  The I Can Has Cheezburger? site is one of the better-known/more popular places to see these pictures. 

I found this picture today, and for some reason it struck me as particularly funny…it might be the drugs

I went to the dentist today.  A small piece of one of my molars (the teeth at the back of my mouth) fell out recently.  This is no great surprise for two reasons.  Firstly, I have a number of very old, very large fillings.  Secondly, it has been over seven years since I went to the dentist last.

I don’t like having dental work done.  Nothing against dentists, really, I’m just not fond of pain, or of the drilling/scraping/abrading process.  This is the second time in my life when I have permitted a huge gap (no pun intended) to occur in my dental care record.  The first time was between the ages of about 15 and about 25.  I started going to dentists again regularly shortly after getting married.  I had a couple of reasonably good dentists in a row, and got sort of comfortable, or at least resigned, to the annual process.  I was had a regular dental checkup record for over a decade.

I never got around to finding a new dentist after we moved to B.C..  That was in 2000, so seven years ago.  Irene has been reminding me every few months for the last seven years that I should find a dentist and get checked out, but it took the appearance of a hole in one of my teeth to get me in motion.

So…on to the dentist.  As I mentioned a couple of paragraphs back, I don’t like pain, or the equipment, or being at the mercy of a stranger who is putting potentially lethal implements in my mouth.  So I looked around a bit, and found a likely sounding company with several clinics nearby.   I went to their closest location, which is basically a five minute drive from my house- nice and convenient.  And my first visit wasn’t too bad.

Mind you, they really didn’t do much.  They showed off their digital X-Ray machine…which I really liked.  I had a monitor right in front of me as I sat in the dental chair, and as they snapped the x-rays I was able to see them immediately.  It was a bonus that this type of x-ray uses about 1/20th as much radiation as the old style.  They confirmed that my crumbling tooth has two cavities, and recommended a crown.  They even took a digital photograph of the tooth in addition to the x-ray, which again appeared on the monitor in front of me.  It was pretty easy to see why a crown made sense- there just isn’t much left of the the chomping surface of the tooth which is mostly occupied by a silver (yes, silver) filling.  Dr. Ben also explained that silver fillings had been shown to expand minutely, creating hairline cracks in the tooth…this simply added to the damage done by the cavities.

Some folks would hate seeing the x-rays, or would find the pictures of their teeth unpleasant to look at.  Personally, I like being involved/aware of what is being done, and I think it helps a bit with my anxiety about the process.  I also like high-tech gadgets, and digital cameras that go inside the mouth are kind of neat :)  I found the dental chair very comfy as well…and when they leaned it all the way back to check a couple of things, I discovered they also have a TV on the ceiling for patients to watch…

So, I’m booked in for preliminary work and a temporary crown on August 16th.  I *might* get in on August 9th, the day before Chris and I go to the airshow- they tell me it will only take an hour and a half and I’ll be “fine” afterwards.  But for some reason, the character Steve Martin played in Little Shop of Horrors keeps running through my mind…