Teeth

Last Thursday I went to the dentist, a place I've been to much too often in the last several months. I'm a grinder - not only at night when sleeping, but during the day, when annoyed. So I had a toothache and called the dentist. It's a tooth that's been hurting on a minor scale for a couple of weeks, but it has a really deep filling and I knew that at some point I would need a root canal and a crown.

She numbed my mouth and we chatted. Then she started the drill and I saw white sparks and thought I was going to come out of the chair. She put more numbing in and we chatted. The drill started and the pain was just as bad. She put MORE numbing in and went in really, really deep (it brought tears to my eyes). Then she went away for 20 minutes or so.


When she came back and started drilling again, the pain was right there. She decided I had a "hot tooth" (abscess) and gave me a prescription for antibiotics. I walked out in very little pain but half my head was numb. When the Novocaine wore off, it hurt - a lot.


So I've been taking antibiotics since Thursday afternoon and here it is Monday. The problem is, my jaw still hurts. I suspect that I actually have 2 teeth that are bad (right next to each other) and it's the other tooth that's hurting so much, but I can't tell the difference because they're too close.


I am not looking forward to this dentist visit. Either way, I'll be numb and in pain when I leave. It's making my head hurt just thinking about it.




Edited to add:
Only 1 root canal was necessary {jazz hands}! However, the pocket of infection was still so big that it blocked the novocaine and I spent a good 3 minutes digging my fingernails into the armrests of the chair while she drilled. As soon as the dentist broke through the filling, she was shooting novocaine directly onto the root of the tooth. Then she let me sit up for a few minutes to breath and relax. Now all that's left is the grinding and the crown.