My mouth is numb.
Sep. 9th, 2011 10:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sinanjuWell, half of it, anyhow. The left side. I just got home from having a filling replaced.
For the last few months, I'd been feeling pressure on one of my lower molars when I chewed with it. I made an appointment with the dentist and had it looked at, but she didn't see anything awry. So time passed, and the pressure seemed to increase. Last night I was eating a cookie and suddenly felt something hard between my teeth. What's this?
Well, juding by the sharp edge I felt with a fingertip when I explored the tooth, my tooth had chipped. Fortunately, there was no pain. Nonetheless, I called to make an appointment this morning as soon as the dental office opened. I got one for 9 a.m. at another office, not my usual one. I drove out there, had an x-ray taken, and then got treatment.
Turns out it wasn't a cracked or chipped tooth. I'd simply lost a filling. So they numbed me up, cleaned out the cavity, and refilled it.
They NUMBED ME UP. As in, they gave me a shot of novacaine. In my mouth. Which, for those unfamiliar with my dental history, was a landmark event.
I had an...unfortunate experience (to put it mildly) with a dentist when I was a child involving several (and incredibly painful) injections prior to some dental work. My mother found another family dentist later. That was the last time I ever submitted to having any sort of injection for dental care.
It was NOT the last time I had cavities filled. Throughout the rest of my childhood, teenage years, and until I was a young man and living too far from my childhood home to make it practical, I stuck with that local dentist, who filled my cavities without anaesthetic. He had an old-fashioned drill, slower than the ones that produce the familiar high-pitched whine we all know and love, but which was also easier on my nerves (in every sense of the word). It was sometimes uncomfortable, but I was more than happy to accept some discomfort rather than face the needle.
As it happens, I've not had any new cavities in my adult life. But I lived in fear of the day when I would have to get one filled--by some other dentist, who wouldn't have that familiar, slow and relatively painless drill.
That day came today. And it was...anticlimactic. I was rigid as a board when the dentist brought the syringe into my line of sight, but they'd used some anaesthetic gel on my gum, so the actual injection was mildly uncomfortable and nothing more. Then they cleaned out the cavity, filled it, and sent me on my way quickly and professionally.
It was a great relief. I curse that long-ago dentist for the butcher he was, but the women today (the dentist and her assistant) were wonderful.
For the last few months, I'd been feeling pressure on one of my lower molars when I chewed with it. I made an appointment with the dentist and had it looked at, but she didn't see anything awry. So time passed, and the pressure seemed to increase. Last night I was eating a cookie and suddenly felt something hard between my teeth. What's this?
Well, juding by the sharp edge I felt with a fingertip when I explored the tooth, my tooth had chipped. Fortunately, there was no pain. Nonetheless, I called to make an appointment this morning as soon as the dental office opened. I got one for 9 a.m. at another office, not my usual one. I drove out there, had an x-ray taken, and then got treatment.
Turns out it wasn't a cracked or chipped tooth. I'd simply lost a filling. So they numbed me up, cleaned out the cavity, and refilled it.
They NUMBED ME UP. As in, they gave me a shot of novacaine. In my mouth. Which, for those unfamiliar with my dental history, was a landmark event.
I had an...unfortunate experience (to put it mildly) with a dentist when I was a child involving several (and incredibly painful) injections prior to some dental work. My mother found another family dentist later. That was the last time I ever submitted to having any sort of injection for dental care.
It was NOT the last time I had cavities filled. Throughout the rest of my childhood, teenage years, and until I was a young man and living too far from my childhood home to make it practical, I stuck with that local dentist, who filled my cavities without anaesthetic. He had an old-fashioned drill, slower than the ones that produce the familiar high-pitched whine we all know and love, but which was also easier on my nerves (in every sense of the word). It was sometimes uncomfortable, but I was more than happy to accept some discomfort rather than face the needle.
As it happens, I've not had any new cavities in my adult life. But I lived in fear of the day when I would have to get one filled--by some other dentist, who wouldn't have that familiar, slow and relatively painless drill.
That day came today. And it was...anticlimactic. I was rigid as a board when the dentist brought the syringe into my line of sight, but they'd used some anaesthetic gel on my gum, so the actual injection was mildly uncomfortable and nothing more. Then they cleaned out the cavity, filled it, and sent me on my way quickly and professionally.
It was a great relief. I curse that long-ago dentist for the butcher he was, but the women today (the dentist and her assistant) were wonderful.