Root Canal Treatment

My stupid tooth.

I didn't take any kind of pain killer today.  Nothing.  Not so much as a single ibuprofen tablet.  I didn't NEED anything.  I think maybe it knew what it was getting itself into and decided that causing excruciating pain was tantamount to tooth suicide.

So I spent the whole day wondering what I was going to do.  I went outside and breathed in cold air just to see if that familiar pain would return.  It didn't.  I swished cold water around in my mouth.  Nothing.  I put pressure on the tooth.  No pain at all.  I tapped on the tooth.  It was tender, but strangely enough, the tooth pain I had been suffering through was gone.  Occaisionally, I would have a dull ache, but it seemed residual, not new.

Great.  What was I supposed to do?

I figured that the dentist would be a good person to talk to about that, and since I had an appointment, I would show up and discuss it with him.

We discussed it, and, refreshingly, he didn't push me to have the root canal.  I told him I was worried about the pain coming back.  He said that it was likely that we would still be doing a root canal treatment on that tooth in the future.  But if I wanted to wait and see if the pain came back, that he wasn't going anywhere.  We could take care of it when it needed to be taken care of.

It was my choice.

My fear of the pain won and I told him to go ahead with the root canal treatment.

Honestly, the procedure wasn't any worse than having a cavity filled.  Novocaine shots are novocaine shots whether you're having one or the other.  The same sickly smells come from the drill.  The same whiny vibrations penetrate your skull during either procedure.  The filing out of the pulp and nerves was a new experience, but to be honest, it wasn't a big deal.  It wasn't as bad as the drilling.

The dentist told me that I had made the right decision.  The root was nearly dead.  He said that the root canals usually bleed when they're being filed out and that mine were almost dry.  This pain would have only been the first in a continuing cycle of pain.

I have to go back in a couple of weeks.  They still have to fill the cleaned out root canals and put a permanent filling in the crown they had to drill through.

Now I know why people hate root canal treatments though.  The pain afterward is bad.  Much worse than with a filling.  I'm aching, even though I took lortab earlier this afternoon.  I'm aching and loopy.

But at least I know that this is the beginning of the end of the pain in this tooth.  *WHEW!*