A couple of weeks ago I started getting toothache, which very quickly rose to the level of going to the dental hospital in Glasgow. It turns out that there was a 'pocket' of impacted food behind my wisdom tooth that had got infected, and I got antibiotics and told to get my regular dentist to check it out.
I haven't had a regular dentist since I left the Netherlands in 2001, so I had to register and all the rest of that jazz (said infection would have happened anyway, but I need fillings fixed and stuff too), and the regular dentist said make an appointment when you're done with the antibiotics and we'll have the tooth out.
Last time I had this done was in NL, and the dentist was an arrogant impatient bastard with no couch-side manner whatsoever. He didn't wait to check if the anaesthetic had taken but just reached in and - admittedly very deftly and skilfully - yanked the tooth. I've never had worse than a cracked elbow or broken nose, so that was the single most painful experience of my life so far.
Thus it was with quite a lot of trepidation that I knocked off work today to go forth and have a tooth pulled, not reassured by my mother's visible panic and offers of comfort should I need it.
This dentist seemed more worried about the thing than I was, and was very careful to make sure that the anaesthetic had fully taken, including giving me extra shots. When the only thing that I could feel was the resistance in my jaw as she poked progressively harder with, I swear to Cthulhu, chisels of varying sizes and the kind of dental probe that you dig stones out of horses' hooves with, then she actually started removing the tooth.
It took fully ten minutes of poking, levering and pulling with pliers. I kept my eyes shut and counted sheep in Yan Tan Tethra, trying not to notice the fact that I was needing quite a lot of strength to keep my head from being yanked around with the tooth. Eventually it came free. There had been no pain.
Now that I have a gaping hole in my gum, it's starting to ache just a tad.
I had been going to post two weeks ago, whingeing about 'poor meeeee, I gots the toothache' but right as I was about to start,![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
rivka posted about her situation and some discomfort suddenly seemed like not that much, really.
I haven't had a regular dentist since I left the Netherlands in 2001, so I had to register and all the rest of that jazz (said infection would have happened anyway, but I need fillings fixed and stuff too), and the regular dentist said make an appointment when you're done with the antibiotics and we'll have the tooth out.
Last time I had this done was in NL, and the dentist was an arrogant impatient bastard with no couch-side manner whatsoever. He didn't wait to check if the anaesthetic had taken but just reached in and - admittedly very deftly and skilfully - yanked the tooth. I've never had worse than a cracked elbow or broken nose, so that was the single most painful experience of my life so far.
Thus it was with quite a lot of trepidation that I knocked off work today to go forth and have a tooth pulled, not reassured by my mother's visible panic and offers of comfort should I need it.
This dentist seemed more worried about the thing than I was, and was very careful to make sure that the anaesthetic had fully taken, including giving me extra shots. When the only thing that I could feel was the resistance in my jaw as she poked progressively harder with, I swear to Cthulhu, chisels of varying sizes and the kind of dental probe that you dig stones out of horses' hooves with, then she actually started removing the tooth.
It took fully ten minutes of poking, levering and pulling with pliers. I kept my eyes shut and counted sheep in Yan Tan Tethra, trying not to notice the fact that I was needing quite a lot of strength to keep my head from being yanked around with the tooth. Eventually it came free. There had been no pain.
Now that I have a gaping hole in my gum, it's starting to ache just a tad.
I had been going to post two weeks ago, whingeing about 'poor meeeee, I gots the toothache' but right as I was about to start,
rivka posted about her situation and some discomfort suddenly seemed like not that much, really.Current Mood: 
relieved
relieved4 comments | Leave a comment