A date with the dentist

Do you know that most people are afraid of dentists than lawyers? I guess there must be a HUGE reason for that...here's one!!!

Two years ago while I was still working as an IT manager for a courier company, I had a very unforgettable encounter with my dentist...I've been plagued by a sore tooth for a couple of weeks so I decided to give her a visit...let me recount the horror so that at least I could SCARE YOU!!!! Bwahahahaha!

My tooth started to hurt a few weeks earlier and I called up my dentist and asked for an appointment, but she was out and I didn't want to see any of her relievers so I decided to wait it out till she gets back. It really pissed me off though, because I am serious about my teeth! I brush them EVERY morning and EVERY night - even when I get home roaring drunk, I'll still brush them before going to bed - and I don't even really eat sweet things so WHY should something be wrong with my teeth?

Good plan? Hmm... except that what had been a sore tooth very quickly became a FUCKING GREAT PAIN and when I looked in the mirror, I could SEE a cavity, so I called back and booked for any dentist I could get. I couldn't get in to see anyone until the following Monday so I booked anyway and bought myself a couple of boxes of painkillers and crossed my fingers.

But by Friday I just couldn't take it anymore and wandered all over on my lunch break TRYING to find SOMEONE who could fit me in that day or the Saturday. Found someone! Great! I booked in for Saturday morning, knowing that it would cost me an arm and a leg, and possibly a shoulder blade and part of a knee cap as well, but not caring because my tooth FUCKING HURTS A LOT!

So I rocked up to this random dentist, had a big filling put in (turns out it was quite a deep cavity), went home and drank a couple of painkillers and went out that night. All good Saturday night

All good Sunday.

All good Monday morning.

Monday afternoon my jaw started to ache. I assumed it was just soreness from the grinding and drilling but by the end of the week I couldn't handle it anymore and called MY dentist - not the random one from the week before - and said "FUCKING HELP ME!" but they couldn't see me until Tuesday. So for the next three days I overdosed on painkillers (no seriously! If my liver wasn't already cactus from the amount I drink? It's DEAD now!) and rocked up at MY dentist that afternoon (having been on a liquid diet - soup, noodles, etc. ) only to be told that my dentist was with someone but that her reliever would see me. By this stage I didn't give a shit, I just wanted it done with, since I sure as hell wasn't dealing with it!

The reliever (whose name I never did actually get, his name sounded like Dr. Octopus or something) did an x-ray of the tooth (cutting my mouth on the x-ray pad) which showed that the random dentist had actually put the filling ON the nerve so that every time I chewed or talked or, ooh I don't know, MOVED MY HEAD AT ALL, the filling pressed on the nerve and cause me FUCKING MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF PAIN.

The only solution really was to get rid of the filling I had (and had paid a fortune for) and replace it with a soft dressing, which apparently lasts for 6 months, and then choose whether I a) want

the tooth REMOVED (physical pain) or b) want root canal work (that'll hurt my pocket more!!!!!)

Having put me into a panic over the very horrible options I'd just been given, the dentist got a needle and INJECTED anaesthetic into my JAW. After about 10 seconds he poked my cheek and asked if it was tingling because that meant it was working. I said that NO, no tingles, although my jaw felt kind of heavy, and he just moved in there with the drill. After 10 FUCKING seconds!!

And that anaesthetic? Had NOT FUCKING WORKED because he drilled ACROSS THE NERVE and it was NOT NUMB and apparently I bit him but I don't remember that because I was too busy SCREAMING!!!!!!!!! I really looked pathethic...I know since I came in there coolly dressed and speaking in full american accent and now I'm reduced to a few ramblings in-between drills! GOD!

The next bit was totally strange and something that's never happened to me before. I was kind of crying, more sobbing breaths but I actually couldn't breathe properly and I was gasping and clutching at the dental nurse (who was SEXY, she was wearing a v-neck shirt and tight short skirt) and I couldn't stop and it was HORRID! It was fucking awful!

And then the dentist got ANOTHER needle and tried to inject my jaw again but I was still gasping and crying and he couldn't get a clear shot at me so he just shook me and told me that I was being silly and that I wasn't helping matters so I TRIED to get hold of myself a bit and he injected me again and said that if it hurt again to raise my hand and he'd stop and give me another injection and then he started drilling again (the nurse was rubbing my shoulder while this was going on, GOOD NURSE) and it STILL hurt so much I put up my hand and HE DIDN'T STOP so I put it up higher and he said "I've only got a minute or so left, it'll be ok" and KEPT DRILLING on a tooth that could FEEL IT and by this stage I was almost hysterical and he HAD to give me a minute to calm down before he put in the filling (which as far as I can tell was cotton wool and plaster. How convenient!!!!)

I don't think he even cared by that stage because he just told me that I'd need to book six months in advance for root canal work and shooed me out of his office. I was still a mess and the receptionists wouldn't let me go back to work (oh yes! This was on my lunch break!); they made me sit in the waiting room for a while with a newspaper and tried to calm me down.

After a while I walked back to work and TRIED to settle down and get on with everything. It was no good though, my nerves had been completely shot to pieces by the whole thing (and probably by having been in continuous pain for the best part of two weeks) and I kept dry sobbing and then tearing up and I was vague and distracted and my officemates were really worried about me.

But at least it was over, right?

Yeah its over!

But I had to choose whether to have a tooth pulled OUT (yuck yuck yuck) or have root canal therapy, where they pull the NERVE out (pain pain fuckingintensepain).

I didn't have to wait long...I had it pulled out after 2 weeks! PAIN PAIN PAIN!