dental ER

This summer I had some dental work done by my family dentist. I had a tooth that was a bit sensitive to hot and cold and so went in and the dentist said the tooth was "on the verge" of needing a root canal but he would try doing a deep cavity filling and see if that would work, in the hopes we wouldn't need to actually do the root canal. That was fine by me at the time but my fear of the dentist clouded my thinking and months and months later when that same tooth was starting to "act up" again I put off going back in. That turned out to be a very unfortunate decision. Sunday night, I went to bed like normal. I read myself to sleep, as always, but was rudely awoken in the middle of the night with excruciating tooth pain!!!! I took tylenol and tried to go back to sleep but it was a no go. I tossed and turned the entire night. When it was time to get up and get the kids ready for school Monday morning I could hardly move. I've never felt tooth pain like that before! I was able to get the kids mostly ready for school but then Brandon had to take over. I felt awful. As soon as Brandon got back home from dropping the kids off he called our family dentist, meanwhile I was bundled up on the sofa, crying and hoping that this wouldn't take too long. Unfortunately, being Thanksgiving week, our dentist was full and so gave us two different referral dentists that we could try calling. Mind you this entire time the minutes and hours are ticking by...and my pain is increasing. Ugh. Brandon called the first dentist and they too were full! Oh man! When Brandon called the second dentist they said they could see me but not until the NEXT DAY!!!! I knew I couldn't make it 24 hours without some sort of relief so Brandon put in yet another call to our family dentist hoping I could get a prescription for some pain meds to make it through the day. Of course, the nurse who answered had to ask the dentist who was with a patient and so the painful waiting began. I did my best to be tough (I honestly think I have a high pain tolerance...) but it wasn't going so well. It...was...miserable!!! After the longest hour of my life (and a total of almost 4 hours since our first call to the dentist that morning) the dentist finally called back saying they had called me in a prescription. I'm pretty cautious with medications but this is one of the few times I've been anxious to take my maximum dose! Soon enough I was comfortable and snoozing away the day. I was nervous about my emergency root canal the next morning but was definitely ready to get this over with, get out of pain and get on with the Thanksgiving holiday.

The next morning I was nervous but doing pretty good. I was all "medded up" but a morning phone call from my baby sister helped calm my nerves. I'm a pretty big weanie when it comes to dental work. I'd rather do almost anything than go to the dentist! Literally! In fact, on the way to my emergency root canal Tuesday morning I couldn't hold back the tears. It was horrible. Thankfully, the dentist my family dentist referred me to was extremely nice and the procedure went well. The only unbearable part was when they had a hard time numbing my mouth and had to drill into my tooth a bit (sans pain meds!) and shoot some numbing medication straight into my root! Ugh! The dentist said it would be uncomfortable and he wasn't lying! Uncomfortable may be the understatement of the century! Ha! I survived, though, and a couple of hours later my face was swollen and my whole mouth was numb BUT I knew that in a couple days I would be out of pain! I did receive some bad news before I left the dentist's office, however, that an old root canal that I had done 5+ years ago had abscessed! I didn't even know that was possible but apparently it's more common than people think. So, in just over a month I have to go back to have more work done but for now I'm much better! Woohoo! As I checked out of the dentist's office the receptionist handed me a rose and a tube of chapstick. I was shocked and quite happy with my little gift. You most definitely need chapstick when you leave the dentist's chair and who doesn't love roses!? Some of my friends thought this gesture was kind of weird (and maybe it was...) but I thought it was nice of them!

The first 24-36 hours after my root canal were uncomfortable, to say the least. But I was thankful for my pain medicine, my ice pack and my helpful husband! I was almost pain free by Thanksgiving Day! I still couldn't eat EVERYTHING I wanted but I was good enough to make it work! I'm now trying not to dread going back for more dental work and instead focus on Christmas ahead! Have I mentioned how much I hate going to the dentist...!?!? Ugh. Ha!