My Worst Trip To The Dentist

Like most people, I don’t like going to the dentist. After not seeing one for a couple of years, I decided to take a trip to the dentist. The story begins with a series of bad treatments. One time I went to the dentist, and I was told I needed a cavity filled in one of my molars. The cavity was filled, and the dentist didn’t fix my bite appropriately. As a result, I started getting these really bad headaches, and had to get my bite adjusted 2 more times until the headaches went away.

This story begins almost 6 years after my last visit to the dentist. I maintain proper dental hygeine by brushing my teeth with an electric toothbrush every day, flossing once every other day, and using a water pick and mouth wash throughout the week. I’d like to think that I have pretty good dental hygeine. I was living with my girlfriend at the time who didn’t want to get a job, and was focused on trying to get her multi-level marketing business up at the time. One day she approached me and told me that she was trying to get a job at a local dentist’s office as a receptionist, and she was going to go to work the following week. I was more than ecstatic.

As a rule of thumb, I would only go if there’s a problem as the dentist seems to create more problems than they solve when it comes to my teeth. When she started working as a receptionist, I scheduled my first appointment in about 6 years to see the dentist to show support for moving away from the multi-level marketing business and getting a real job. Unfortunately, the job was short lived, as her role at the dental clinic lasted only 1 day. I decided to fulfill my dental obligation and get my teeth cleaned anyways.

When the day of my appointment arrived, I got my teeth cleaned, and was informed that I had two cavities that needed attention. The dentist informed me that they would be able to fill the cavities that day so I wouldn’t have to come back for a filling, so I agreed to get the cavities filled. One was on the left side of my mouth in a molar, and the other was in the right side of my mouth in another molar. I walked out of the clinic with my mouth all numbed up with a brand new toothbrush, and went home to go back to work.

After all of the anesthetic wore off, I was having a bit of pain in my tooth where the cavity was filled. I called the dental clinic, and they informed me that my teeth can be sensitive after a filling, and to take some over the counter pain killers to help until the sensitivity wore off. They informed me that it can be sensitive for up to 30 days, so once 30 days pass, they would take a look at it again.

The pain in my molar was pretty bad. I would take Tylenol whenever I felt pain, and it would really help with the pain for about 4 hours. Then I would start feeling the pain again, so I would take some more Tylenol. It got to the point where I realized I was exceeding the recommended dosage for Tylenol, and I could risk damaging my liver if I continued doing this. I found another pain killer that didn’t have acetaminophen, and I used that to alternate when I was about to exceed the recommended dosage of Tylenol, and I would alternate these two drugs for a month as the pain would not go away.

At the 30 day mark, I called the dentist and informed them that I was still in pain after 30 days, and they immediately scheduled for me to come in and get evaluated. They came to the conclusion that they drilled too deep when filling the cavity in my molar and had impacted one of the nerves in my molar. As a result, I needed a root canal, and to my luck, they offered to do it while I was there.

The dentist got the anesthetic and tried to numb me up, but they were unable to get me numb enought to conduct the procedure. I was numb from my left eye down through my neck, but I could still feel incredible pain when they started drilling. I was in the office for over 2 hours until they told me that they couldn’t give me any more anesthetic. My chest was getting really heavy, and it was becoming difficult to breathe, so they needed to monitor me for a bit before they let me go home. They informed me that I needed to reach out to a specialist — an endodontist to perform the root canal. I scheduled an appointment with the endodontist that day, and went in for the procedure a week later.

When I arrived at the endodontist, I filled out the forms for my procedure, and one of the questions on the form was asking for a nickname. I don’t typically see this on the form, so as a joke, I wrote in the word “J-Dog”. Within 30 minutes I was in the hot seat, getting ready for my procedure. The endodontist came in, took some pictures, and was preparing to conduct the root canal. When he came back with the anesthetic he asked me a question, “So J-Dog, how are you with needles?” and I burst into laughter. I did not expect him to call me by the nickname I wrote down on the information sheet. I explained the situation that happened at the dentist to him, and he continued to give me anesthetic.

After about two tries of giving me anesthetic, the endodontist was becoming worried that I wasn’t numb enough and may run into the same issue encountered at the dentist, so he came up with an idea. He told me he was going to do a procedure where he drills into my tooth to expose my nerve, and apply the anesthetic directly to the nerve through the hole in the tooth. This was somewhat painful, but I was finally able to get numb for the remainder of the procedure.

After the root canal, I needed to get fitted for a crown. I went back to my original dentist to get a mould of my tooth, selected my crown color, and had it sent off for printing. After 2 weeks of waiting, my crown finally arrived at the dentist, and it arrived chipped. I needed to wait another 2 weeks for the new crown to come in, and my dental issue had finally been resolved.

In total, I spent about 3 months of my life trying to get this dental issue resolved. My mouth was perfectly comfortable and fine before I went to the dentist, and this just reinforces my principals to only go to the dentist if there’s a problem. Since this fiasco, I have gone to a different dentist for a cleaning, and they informed me that I had some cavities that needed filling, but I haven’t yet scheduled the appointment for that.