I never pictured myself as toothless or even tooth-impaired. Since becoming an adult, I've basically taken care of my teeth. I brush twice daily and I floss before bed. Usually. Nonetheless, at the beginning of this year, I had some lingering cavities from days of yore and one back lower molar (#18) with a crownless root canal.
I wanted to get these things taken care of as inexpensively as possible, so I went through the screening to be accepted as a patient in the dental school in Richmond, one hour away. My dental student, Stephanie, is bright and capable. I'm sure she'll be a fantastic dentist. We got started on my treatment plan, which I hoped wouldn't be that involved.
Things were going smoothly. I had no dental pain. All I needed were some fillings and a decision about that back tooth that I'd let out to pasture. But then Stephanie was doing a filling on #19, #18's sole next-door neighbor, and disaster struck. She had put a rubber dam on my mouth to keep the composite filling dry when she got to that point. She needed to adjust the dam, but the shiny metal clamp wouldn't release as it should have. She asked for her preceptor's help, and he couldn't get it off either. The dental assistant kindly inserted that she had seen a dentist use a burr to cut the clamp off on a previous occasion. But the preceptor kept wrenching and kept wrenching with a metal tool until, finally, the clamp shot off, dinging the roof of my mouth with a fantastic "CHINK!" As this happened, a piece of my tooth went sailing through the air and hit my folded hand. The dentist pocketed the tooth chunk and I've never seen him again. After the preceptor vanished without aknowledgement of possible damage dealt to #19, Stephanie noted for the first time a "craze line" - a crack - in my tooth.
As that was happening, I thought to my mute (remember the rubber dam - I was literally unable to argue what was going on in my mouth) self, "This can't be good." That night, after the numbness had worn off, I had the most tenderness I had ever felt after a filling and the tooth was exquisitely painful to chew on. No matter, I thought, I'd give it a few days. A few days later, my jaw and tooth were basically back to normal except that it really hurt to chew on poor, newly cracked #19.
This is a long story, so to sum up (keeping in mind that the dental school is an hour away and my dear, patient, beleaguered friend Sarah always keeps Vivian for me): I went back to the dental school and they determined I do have a severely cracked tooth that had not been noted prior to the incident. So they offered to give me a root canal and crown for free to try to fix the problem. That process has been free, but has taken four four-hour appointments and my tooth still hurts with the temporary crown on it. RRRRRRRR. I've reconciled that it's just going to hurt to chew on it until I can afford an implant when I'm forty.
My last appointment at the dental school eight days ago addressed #18 with extraction. It would have been very expensive, yet impermanent to re-treat it. So I opted for extraction. It was an involved extraction that the oral surgeon said "Was more difficult than an impacted third molar" because it had had a root canal and also had a tenacious root system. Anyway, they got it out and I was euphoric to have that over with.
Long stupid story shorter: I got a dry socket from that extraction. Pain! And not only #19, but also the tooth directly above it got cracked in the "flying clamp" incident. I only started noticing the crack on the upper tooth after I had a root canal and crown because I no longer favored the bottom tooth. Darrrrh! Anyway, it pays to floss. Flossing wouldn't have helped directly in my case, but it would've kept me out of the dental chair in the first place, and my teeth wouldn't have gotten cracked.
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