Tag Archives: curved roots

Apr1

Thank You , Dr. Jay

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Warning: If you don’t like needles, you may not want to read this post.

I’d had a tooth pulled a little over three years ago. The tooth wasn’t totally numb when the dentist started yanking on it, and it hurt. The dentist had to stop the procedure and numb the area further before continuing.

The way I remember it, there was a lot of tugging on the tooth, and I was fighting my body to keep it in the chair. My brain was telling me that what was happening in my mouth was UNNATURAL, and I should put a stop to it. Even once my mouth was adequately numb, my brain wouldn’t shut up about the unnaturalness of what the dentist was doing.

For the current extraction, I wanted my brain to be calm, so I took an Ativan. Actually, I took half an Ativan before I went to sleep the night before the procedure and the second half right before I went into dental exam room #2.

I’ll tell you what…I slept like a log the night before the extraction. The Ativan sent me off into the land of deepest sleep. I had to get up in the night for my usual trip to the toilet, but I barely felt awake. When I woke up the morning, I was in no hurry to get out of bed.

After breakfast, while I was brushing my teeth, the crown popped off my tooth for the last time. I put it back on my tooth, but didn’t use any adhesive. I figured I’d pop it off right before the extraction.

The Lady of the House drove me to the appointment because we all knew I shouldn’t be driving on Ativan. I didn’t feel much different than normal, just maybe a little slower and a little sleepier.

We arrived at Dr. Jay’s office about twenty minutes before my appointment. The doctor herself gave me a stack of paperwork to complete and accepted my payment. After filling in all of the blanks, I ducked into the restroom to pop off my crown and pop the remaining half of Ativan down my throat.

I sat down in the chair in exam room #2. I hadn’t been there long before the nurse led me into the hall for an x-ray. After the x-ray, she put a cotton swab with numbing gel against my gum. After a while, a male dentist (my dentist’s husband, I found out later, so his name is also Dr. Jay) came in to give me the numbing shots. Mr. Dr. Jay told me to open my mouth and close my eyes, and I did. He started giving me shots, and it hurt, but I kept my displays of discomfort to low moans.

They left me alone in the exam room for a while. A couple time I was asked if I was feeling numb. I said I was, but I was afraid I wasn’t numb enough. I wanted to be sure I’d feel no pain when the procedure started.

Mrs. Dr. Jay came into the room and said the procedure might be a little difficult because of my curved roots. She said an oral surgeon would have charged me $500 to remove that tooth. (Dr. Jay charged me $150.) She said not to worry though, because she is really good at extracting teeth. She told me that people have told her that she should write a book about extracting teeth.

Before she started to pull the tooth, Dr. Jay wanted to confirm that it was entirely numb. She started poking around in my mouth. I felt some pressure, but then I felt what would have quickly turned into pain had she poked harder. I raised my left hand. She stopped what she was doing and said she would give me more numbing medication.

My eyes were closed, and even if they had been open, I wouldn’t have been able to see where the dentist put the needle. From the way it felt, I imagined that Dr. Jay had jabbed the needle deep into my jaw. It hurt! It hurt! It Hurt! IT HURT! IT MOTHER FUCKING HURT! I screamed a wordless scream! Dr. Jay said (in her East Indian accent), Please do not scream. I quit screaming, but it hurt so bad.

After I’d quit yelling, Dr. Jay told me, We dentists have a saying. If you scream, we must charge you twice. Once for you and once for the patient that leaves.

I went from yelling to laughing. And I apologized for screaming.

While we were waiting to make sure that the medication had kicked in, Dr. Jay explained to me that the roots of the tooth were very infected. (Dr. Endo had told me the same thing, so I knew it was true.) She said that the infection is acidic, but the medication is a base. So the first round of the medication that hits the infection is neutralized. Although putting the medication right into the infection REALLY hurt, Dr. Jay made sure I wasn’t going to feel anything during the procedure. Thank you, Dr. Jay.

Dr. Jay had me open my mouth again. I made my own decision to close my eyes.

She told me I’d feel a lot of pressure because of the curved roots. I felt her working in my mouth, and I did feel a lot of pressure, but no pain. In just a few moments, she was no longer working in my mouth, and I said, Is that it? Are you done?

She was almost done. She’d pulled the tooth. The tooth was out. She still had to get some of the roots out of my jaw. She took care of them pretty quick. You are good, I told her, but she already knew it.

The nurse put a gauze pad over my tooth hole, and told me to bite down. Dr. Jay showed me the tooth, complete with curved roots, one of which was swollen with infection. Gross!

I was handed prescriptions for antibiotics (got to get rid of that infection) and painkillers (Tylenol with codeine, which I did not get filled) and instructions for aftercare.

I took a nap that afternoon, and ate mostly pudding and ice cream until the evening when The Lady made biscuits and I ate the very soft middles with honey. I took my medicine and let my body heal.

Mar28

Appointments

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After waiting two days for the office manager at my dentist’s office to call me back, I called her first thing yesterday morning. (By “first thing,” I mean before 8:30.) The dental assistant answered the phone. She is an adequate dental assistant, but I don’t think she’s the brightest bulb in the chandelier. First, when I tried to explain who I was and give some information about my situation, she told me she thought I had the wrong number. Then, when I said the office manager was supposed to call me back yesterday and hadn’t, she said that yes, the office manager had called me. I pointed out to her that my phone had never rung, no voice mail had been left, and my phone didn’t show a missed call. Then I just forged in with, “in any case,” and asked if I should call back later when the office manager was in. Oh, she assured me, the office manager was in. (Why she didn’t immediately pass the phone to the office manager, we’ll never know.)

The office manager got on the phone and told me she had received the report from Dr. Endo. She just had to print it she said, then the dentist would look at it and decide if she could remove the tooth. She told me she was printing the report as we spoke, and would call me back as soon as the dentist had read it.

She actually did call me back a few minutes later. The dentist would not do the extraction. The tooth was too close to the impacted wisdom tooth. She was afraid of “messing something up.” However, she did refer me once again to the possible bargain dentist (Dr. Jay) who’d said she couldn’t do a root canal because of my curved roots.

I called Dr. Jay. She said she would do the extraction. I reminded her about my curving roots, but she was not deterred. She said she can do just about any extraction. So I have an appointment with her next week. The extraction will cost $150.

Then I called the mechanic and made an appointment to bring in the van on Wednesday. He said he was going to call me back before the end of the day, but he didn’t. I am going to forgive him because I know he is super busy. I expect I’ll hear from him Monday. He said he should have all the work done in one day, but if something went wrong (such as being sold incorrect parts), it might take two days. I’m hoping the van will be ready for me to pick up on Wednesday, because on Thursday I am supposed to move into my new (temporary) home.

Let’s all keep our fingers crossed for good dental and vehicular news.

Mar6

Another Day in the Saga of My Mouth

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Are you tired of reading about my teeth? If you are, close the window now, because this post is about my mouth.

When we last saw our hero (that’s me), I had called the possible bargain dentist and was told to drop by the office with the x-ray. So I made the drive out there. When I walked into the office, I was overtaken by the smell of the dentist office of my childhood. I don’t know what particular aromas came together to create that particular smell, but my nose told me I was in the waiting room of the dentist my family visited when I was in elementary school. I expected to see Highlights magazine and 70s era furniture, but upon looking around, I found myself back in the present.

No one was at the front desk. I signed in and waited no more than two minutes before an East Indian woman with “Dr.” stitched on the top of her scrubs came out of the back. I explained I had called yesterday and she remembered me. I produced the x-ray, and as soon as she looked at it, she said, “Oh no!” (Hearing a dentist exclaim “Oh no!” never makes me feel warm and fuzzy and safe and happy.) She explained that the tooth’s roots are curved. She showed me on the x-ray. She was right, the roots are definitely curved. The surrounding teeth have straight up and down roots, but tooth #31, the Princess Tooth, has roots curving toward the impacted wisdom tooth next to it. The doctor said if she tried to do a root canal on it, an instrument could break off in there! That sounds totally horrible!

The possible bargain doctor said I need to see a specialist.

I called the endodontist’s office and explained my whole situation to the nice woman who answered the phone. She asked me if I knew what tooth needed the root canal. I told her it was #31. She said the cost for a root canal on tooth #31 was $1,195. Her tone was so calm and matter-or-fact. $1,195. Wait. Let me spell that out. One Thousand One Hundred Ninety-five Dollars.

That was wildly more than I had even imagined. I was thinking it might be $600, $800 tops.

I asked the woman what kind of time frame I had to work with, how long I could wait until I had to have this work done. The good news is that she said this is not an emergency situation. She said if I wait years to take care of this, yes, I could lose the tooth. But I don’t have to have the root canal this week or this month. She warned me that the pain could flair up at any time, but said if I’m not having pain right now, I can wait. (The other good news is that I’m not in any pain right now.)

The Lady of the House recommended that I call the dental school and find out what they charge for a root canal. I called, and I’m waiting for them get back to me. The saga is not over yet.

(In light of all this dental activity in my life, I was amused to find out that March 6 is Dentist’s Day, according to http://www.holidayinsights.com/moreholidays/March/dentistsday.htm.)