Tag Archives: tooth extraction

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.

Mar25

Murphy’s Law of the Mouth

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I went in for my root canal. The first thing the dental assistant did was take some x-rays of Princess Tooth and her surrounding tooth friends.

The endodontist, Dr. Endo came in next. He was younger than I expected, but very nice. I liked him, and more importantly, I trusted him.

He said he’d looked at the x-rays of my mouth and asked if I’d cracked the tooth. My x-rays (newfangled x-rays taken with a computer) were up on a screen to my left, and Dr. Endo pointed out the large abscess (ugh!), as well as some slight bone loss. Then he said the remainder of the tooth was cracked, and he wasn’t sure if the root canal was going to save the tooth. He said he wouldn’t be able to tell until he got in there with a microscope, but warned me that if the crack went too far down, the root canal had a 100% chance of failure and there was no sense continuing.

Dr.  Endo left the room and his lovely (friendly, caring) assistant put numbing gel in two areas in my mouth, behind and on the side of Princess Tooth. Once the gel had numbed me, Dr. Endo came back into the room and told me to close my eyes if I didn’t want to see the needle. I decided it was best if I didn’t see the needle, so I squeezed my eyes shut. Needles hurt, even when I can’t see them.

The assistant came back into the room with a beige square in her hands. She showed the square to me and asked, Are you familiar with dental dams? I wanted to say, Only as a safer sex technique for cunnilingus, but I kept that to myself and just said no.

She told me the dental dam would isolate my tooth during the procedure. She told me I’d feel pressure when she put it over my tooth, but to let her know if it poked or pinched.

She put it in my mouth and said, Do you feel the pressure? I didn’t feel a dang thing, so I shook my head no. She said, Oh, you’re good and numb. Oh yeah, I was numb all right. Swallowing felt weird, and I wondered if I was actually having problems breathing or it just felt that way because I couldn’t feel anything in the back of my mouth.

Then the assistant left the room again. I was in the room alone, leaned all the way back in the chair, with mouth wide open and a piece of latex over it while I wondered if I was going to continue to be able to breathe. It was not my happiest moment.

Finally (finally!) Dr. Endo and the lovely assistant came back into the room and started working in my mouth. Dr. Endo was drilling, and I could hear the loud hum of the drill in my head, but I couldn’t feel a thing. Oh blessed numbness!

Dr. Endo didn’t work in my mouth very long before he gave me the bad news. The tooth was way cracked and there was no saving it. Doing a root canal on it would be a waste of time and money. The Princess Tooth must be pulled.

I didn’t even cry about it. There’s only so much crying a person can do over one tooth. (Besides, my van has an appointment with a new mechanic , so I better keep some tears in reserve for that verdict.)

Dr. Endo said he’d write a report on my tooth and send it to the dentist who put on the crown. I’ll have to see her again, and we can decide if I’ll get an implant after the tooth is pulled. (Unless extraction + implant = < $1,100, the answer to the implant questions will be no.)

Dr. Endo said I should get the tooth extracted within a month. The abscess is still there and won’t go away until the tooth is out. Dr. Endo said to call his office if the tooth becomes painful or swollen (or painfully swollen, I presume), and he’ll write another prescription for antibiotics for me.

The cost to find out that my $900 crown is worthless and my tooth needs to be pulled? $400.