Bryan W. Alaspa 1The fun and fury of dental surgery
January 30th 2010 22:10
I have always had pretty good teeth. Knocking on wood right now, I can say I have never had a cavity. However, I have had two root canals and, now, dental surgery involving slicing my gums open. Yes, I may go for cleanings and come out without any metal filling the middle of my teeth, but when my teeth decide to go bad, they go bad in a big way. No mere cavities are good enough for these choppers, no, these guys wait and then leave me in excruciating pain.
The first root canal was way back in sixth or seventh grade. I had cracked a tooth right in half while having a pillow fight with my cousins. Yes, a pillow fight. No, we were not having a pillow fight with pillow cases filled with rocks. I had simply been knocked to the ground and while I was trying to get back up, with my head down facing the floor, I got knocked on the head and my face smashed into the hardwood floor. Before long my mouth was in agony and I had root canal number one.
I then waited a couple of decades before having the second one. Suddenly I was getting agonizing pain from a tooth on my lower jaw. I went to the dentist who determined I had some kind of infection at the tip of the tooth and it had worn down into the tooth, damaging the nerve. I spent a week on Vicoprofen while taking antibiotics and had my second root canal.
Then, just recently, I started having pain again. This time the pain was coming from the same tooth that one of my cousins had helped break in half some three decades ago. It made no sense. Since that time the tooth had been capped. It was mostly fake. There was no nerve. What the hell could be hurting? Again, my teeth settle for no mere cavity.
This time, however, the surgery was so much different from that first root canal. I remember that being the first time I got a shot in my gums and it hurting the entire time the doctor had the needle in there. I whined and whimpered throughout the entire surgery. None of that happened this time.
Still, dental surgery is so much different from other kinds of surgery. You are usually awake, at least for most of it. I have yet to have so much surgery that they actually knock me unconscious or use something like nitrous on me. At least now they have topical anesthetics they put on your gums before they put that needle in. The needles in dentistry look like something out of Dante’s Inferno. They are big and metal and the needles look roughly sixty feet long when you see them coming straight for your face.
This was my first time having my gums cut open. The scalpel looks like a snow shovel coming at your face. The amazing thing is, you can feel and see that the doctor is cutting you open and not feel a thing. Imagine if you were awake when they removed your appendix. Imagine just looking down and seeing them slice you open and going, “I’ll be darned, would you look at that?”
I have discovered that I make a pretty sorry drug or drug-taking person. All narcotics do for me is make me want to sleep. If that is what these drugs do, I don’t get the appeal. Mostly I feel spacey and disconnected. Maybe that’s what people like.
However, all in all, my adventure could have been much worse. I got to keep my tooth. I felt really no pain. Right now, I look like I tried to have collagen put in my lips and the guy missed and filed my upper gums with it instead. All in all, though, it’s better than being in pain and much better than being toothless
The first root canal was way back in sixth or seventh grade. I had cracked a tooth right in half while having a pillow fight with my cousins. Yes, a pillow fight. No, we were not having a pillow fight with pillow cases filled with rocks. I had simply been knocked to the ground and while I was trying to get back up, with my head down facing the floor, I got knocked on the head and my face smashed into the hardwood floor. Before long my mouth was in agony and I had root canal number one.
I then waited a couple of decades before having the second one. Suddenly I was getting agonizing pain from a tooth on my lower jaw. I went to the dentist who determined I had some kind of infection at the tip of the tooth and it had worn down into the tooth, damaging the nerve. I spent a week on Vicoprofen while taking antibiotics and had my second root canal.
Then, just recently, I started having pain again. This time the pain was coming from the same tooth that one of my cousins had helped break in half some three decades ago. It made no sense. Since that time the tooth had been capped. It was mostly fake. There was no nerve. What the hell could be hurting? Again, my teeth settle for no mere cavity.
This time, however, the surgery was so much different from that first root canal. I remember that being the first time I got a shot in my gums and it hurting the entire time the doctor had the needle in there. I whined and whimpered throughout the entire surgery. None of that happened this time.
Still, dental surgery is so much different from other kinds of surgery. You are usually awake, at least for most of it. I have yet to have so much surgery that they actually knock me unconscious or use something like nitrous on me. At least now they have topical anesthetics they put on your gums before they put that needle in. The needles in dentistry look like something out of Dante’s Inferno. They are big and metal and the needles look roughly sixty feet long when you see them coming straight for your face.
This was my first time having my gums cut open. The scalpel looks like a snow shovel coming at your face. The amazing thing is, you can feel and see that the doctor is cutting you open and not feel a thing. Imagine if you were awake when they removed your appendix. Imagine just looking down and seeing them slice you open and going, “I’ll be darned, would you look at that?”
I have discovered that I make a pretty sorry drug or drug-taking person. All narcotics do for me is make me want to sleep. If that is what these drugs do, I don’t get the appeal. Mostly I feel spacey and disconnected. Maybe that’s what people like.
However, all in all, my adventure could have been much worse. I got to keep my tooth. I felt really no pain. Right now, I look like I tried to have collagen put in my lips and the guy missed and filed my upper gums with it instead. All in all, though, it’s better than being in pain and much better than being toothless
| 37 |
| Vote |
subscribe to this blog
