First You Make A Stone Of Your Heart..or Teeth

So this morning I hit the road and drove to a new to me endodentist who's practice is called Soft Touch. Their web page talks about a pain free experience and is very soothing and comforting. I've done this dance a few times, and besides the first time I ever had it done, it's always been a not great experience but the fear of it is always worse than the actual experience. I wasn't expecting a LOT.

The first thing that impressed me was that they did a ton of tests besides "is this tooth too sensitive to cold?". That is literally the only thing that ANYONE ever checked before deciding a root canal was necessary. They checked my bite and did tons of x-rays looking at my freakishly long roots.  The freakishly long roots I have growing on my teeth might have been the cause for lots of conversation except that it turned out I had another freakish thing going on.

I had stones in my teeth where there should've been pulp.  That's right - STONES. Some people get stones in their kidneys, or their gall bladders, or in their saliva glands, I am growing them IN MY DAMN TEETH.

They took some other looks at my mouth and every tooth back in molar land has them on the side they were working on. It's her guess I have them in most of my teeth. This is the root of my many root canals and cracked teeth. It's officially called "pulp calcification" and so yay another weird thing I have.

The doctor was super impressive right out of the gate though, I've got to say, she went over all of the tests they did and explained them, and then my x-rays and explained them. She showed me how #29 next to #30 is going to be my next likely problem because of the stones so we can just watch it. She showed me how there are stones under the crown next to today's problem tooth. She showed me how when they pulled my wisdom teeth THEY DIDN'T GET THEM ALL OUT NICE JOB DR. ROB grrrrrrr.

Anyway, I have to admit, right off the bat, I was pretty relaxed with her.

Shortly after 10:30 she went to work. Dentists usually say "you'll feel a sharp pinch" and it's a sharp pinch in exactly the same way that childbirth is "some pressure". However she said "This will be warm" and suddenly I'm getting a painless but warm and comforting injection. I don't know even know WHAT the heck it was. It actually didn't feel like anything. After she did several of those she followed up with the lidocaine and it was even less of an issue, she didn't bother with the "you'll feel a pinch". Instead she said "you shouldn't feel this at all".

She had to drill through my old filling, and then she had to drill through the stones with a tiny high pitched thing. The stones took forever, she kept saying "WOW these are dense"...and changing gloves and instruments.

At one point I felt a sharp pain shoot up my jaw and she repeated the injections and one into my tooth.

Once she got through the stones, the fun began. My long roots and narrow roots gave her a really hard time apparently. She would drill and then do this long needle thing (I don't know what that is, I think they're trying to clear out your root with it like a drain snake), and I could see her consternation and she'd keep doing the same things again and again.

Both the assistant and the doctor would ask me sometimes "Are we ok to keep going? Are you doing ok?" and I gotta confess, I was really super ok. I wasn't comfortable, huge bite block in my mouth, dental dam thing going on and drool running down my chin but all things considered that she was drilling into my head, I was doing ok. I would almost swear I drifted off now and again, I don't know why because I feel like I remember all of it but sometimes I'd just feel so heavy and tired that I would close my eyes.

She kept assuring me "If you can keep going I can get it" and I didn't really understand what she meant. I mean, what am I supposed to do, go have lunch because it's taking too long?  She got up twice to get different tools. Longer and thinner from the looks of them.

So we kept at it. During the procedure the power went off three times. Once I was in the bathroom.

I have to admit it's really disconcerting to be sitting on a strange toilet, pants around your ankles and the lights go off. It's MORE disconcerting with a dental dam in your mouth. But we made it through.

I felt bad for them because the air conditioning kicked off. They went through more gloves than anyone I have ever seen, and more equipment they kept changing tips and things and they were sweating to death as they worked harder on getting to the bottom of my impossible roots.

When it was all over, it was 1:30 in the afternoon. That's how I know I probably slept. I don't recall it taking three hours.

In addition to my long curvy roots and pulp stones, I ALSO had an extra nerve bundle in that tooth that she had to dig out. Surprise!

She told me I was one of the best patients she'd ever had, which amazed me. I thought she was literally the best endodontist I'd ever had so I think me being good is really just a reflection of her. But she told me afterward that most people won't sit for that long and want to do it over two days. WHO the hell would want to come back AGAIN?

I came home and have napped on and off. I've got a muscle relaxer and I feel exhausted and it hurts to talk. But I survived.

If I end up needing #29 done or any other tooth for that matter, I know exactly where I am going.


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First You Make A Stone Of Your Heart..or Teeth

So this morning I hit the road and drove to a new to me endodentist who's practice is called Soft Touch. Their web page talks about a pain free experience and is very soothing and comforting. I've done this dance a few times, and besides the first time I ever had it done, it's always been a not great experience but the fear of it is always worse than the actual experience. I wasn't expecting a LOT.

The first thing that impressed me was that they did a ton of tests besides "is this tooth too sensitive to cold?". That is literally the only thing that ANYONE ever checked before deciding a root canal was necessary. They checked my bite and did tons of x-rays looking at my freakishly long roots.  The freakishly long roots I have growing on my teeth might have been the cause for lots of conversation except that it turned out I had another freakish thing going on.

I had stones in my teeth where there should've been pulp.  That's right - STONES. Some people get stones in their kidneys, or their gall bladders, or in their saliva glands, I am growing them IN MY DAMN TEETH.

They took some other looks at my mouth and every tooth back in molar land has them on the side they were working on. It's her guess I have them in most of my teeth. This is the root of my many root canals and cracked teeth. It's officially called "pulp calcification" and so yay another weird thing I have.

The doctor was super impressive right out of the gate though, I've got to say, she went over all of the tests they did and explained them, and then my x-rays and explained them. She showed me how #29 next to #30 is going to be my next likely problem because of the stones so we can just watch it. She showed me how there are stones under the crown next to today's problem tooth. She showed me how when they pulled my wisdom teeth THEY DIDN'T GET THEM ALL OUT NICE JOB DR. ROB grrrrrrr.

Anyway, I have to admit, right off the bat, I was pretty relaxed with her.

Shortly after 10:30 she went to work. Dentists usually say "you'll feel a sharp pinch" and it's a sharp pinch in exactly the same way that childbirth is "some pressure". However she said "This will be warm" and suddenly I'm getting a painless but warm and comforting injection. I don't know even know WHAT the heck it was. It actually didn't feel like anything. After she did several of those she followed up with the lidocaine and it was even less of an issue, she didn't bother with the "you'll feel a pinch". Instead she said "you shouldn't feel this at all".

She had to drill through my old filling, and then she had to drill through the stones with a tiny high pitched thing. The stones took forever, she kept saying "WOW these are dense"...and changing gloves and instruments.

At one point I felt a sharp pain shoot up my jaw and she repeated the injections and one into my tooth.

Once she got through the stones, the fun began. My long roots and narrow roots gave her a really hard time apparently. She would drill and then do this long needle thing (I don't know what that is, I think they're trying to clear out your root with it like a drain snake), and I could see her consternation and she'd keep doing the same things again and again.

Both the assistant and the doctor would ask me sometimes "Are we ok to keep going? Are you doing ok?" and I gotta confess, I was really super ok. I wasn't comfortable, huge bite block in my mouth, dental dam thing going on and drool running down my chin but all things considered that she was drilling into my head, I was doing ok. I would almost swear I drifted off now and again, I don't know why because I feel like I remember all of it but sometimes I'd just feel so heavy and tired that I would close my eyes.

She kept assuring me "If you can keep going I can get it" and I didn't really understand what she meant. I mean, what am I supposed to do, go have lunch because it's taking too long?  She got up twice to get different tools. Longer and thinner from the looks of them.

So we kept at it. During the procedure the power went off three times. Once I was in the bathroom.

I have to admit it's really disconcerting to be sitting on a strange toilet, pants around your ankles and the lights go off. It's MORE disconcerting with a dental dam in your mouth. But we made it through.

I felt bad for them because the air conditioning kicked off. They went through more gloves than anyone I have ever seen, and more equipment they kept changing tips and things and they were sweating to death as they worked harder on getting to the bottom of my impossible roots.

When it was all over, it was 1:30 in the afternoon. That's how I know I probably slept. I don't recall it taking three hours.

In addition to my long curvy roots and pulp stones, I ALSO had an extra nerve bundle in that tooth that she had to dig out. Surprise!

She told me I was one of the best patients she'd ever had, which amazed me. I thought she was literally the best endodontist I'd ever had so I think me being good is really just a reflection of her. But she told me afterward that most people won't sit for that long and want to do it over two days. WHO the hell would want to come back AGAIN?

I came home and have napped on and off. I've got a muscle relaxer and I feel exhausted and it hurts to talk. But I survived.

If I end up needing #29 done or any other tooth for that matter, I know exactly where I am going.


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Contacts In My Book And In My Eyes

I took this photo only so that I could text it to my friend with the exclamation THE NEW PHONE BOOKS ARE HERE THE NEW PHONE BOOKS ARE HERE, and then he forgot that part of The Jerk and my joke was lost.

Thankfully I could post it everywhere else online AND OTHER PEOPLE GOT IT.

Anyway, I love that pic. But back to today's topic.

I have been having trouble with distance and close up the past few months. It's gotten worse recently and since it'd been a solid two years since I had a new set of lenses I decided I would get new ones. I asked during my exam if I could try contacts. I haven't worn them since God was a boy, but I remember thinking I was cute in them when I was 20 something. They do apparently make some that have different scrips in the lenses but the eye doctor really didn't think they were "IT" for me. She suggested I do MONOVISION.

I would best describe MONOVISION as being able to SEE NOT SEE. Monovision means one eye has one scrip for far (my dominant eye) and one eye has a scrip for close vision.  It's hard to describe how disturbing it is. It was hard to get used to progressive lenses, and this feels harder. I can tell you that, I can FEEL which eye is doing the seeing and that is disconcerting at best. I'd like my eyes to be like my ears, just doing their job and me not really knowing they were there.

Putting makeup on is a challenge, oh sweet lord it's a challenge. Up close OMG CAN'T SEE. Far away - TOO FAR HOW CAN I GET MY EYELINER ON? I did a back and forth dance somewhat like a slow, ungainly Charleston from the mirror with a soft brown eyeliner trying to find the sweet spot in my vision that never did quite happen.

I realized that I now actually had to do my eyeshadow vs just slap some shit on that would be a weird distorted mess under my big old frames and lenses, and in my attempt to make a smokey eye, I flung eyeshadow into my eye (the contact LOVED that for sure) at which point my eyeliner started running off down my cheek making a brown smear. I tried to wipe it off and it seemed to make a thick paste beside my eye - thanks Ulta I love your powder who KNEW it made paste too? I decided at that point that the only solution was MORE MAKE UP and started tabbing on concealer over this spot of doom and eventually concealed plus powdered it out of existence.

My intense makeup preparation was really just busy work because I was nervous about my 11 am appointment with my dentist today. I've been enjoying the classic symptoms of vicious headaches and temperature sensitivity that herald a root canal. I was actually having pain on the top and bottom, but it turned out that the top tooth had some recession at the gum line and they painted some sealant on it and MAGIC it no longer hurts. But the bottom tooth has a crack and needs a specialist so to a new endodontist I go in the morning.

It hurt so bad this evening that I took a for real pain pill, as ibuprofen won't even touch this lance of fire and misery that is shooting through my jaw.

It's kind of starting to work now. Sorry if I get loopy somewhere along the way here.

My dentist office had another great thing - AMAZING LIGHTING IN THE LADIES ROOM.

I look pretty damn good for 46.

My dedication to Mary Kay nightcream and Egyptian Magic (and every other cream I can get my hands on) are paying off. And good DNA. Let's don't forget the value of good DNA.

I'm in so much pain that honestly, I am looking FORWARD to the root canal tomorrow.

One of my best friends told me today that I look like Isabelli Rossellini. Seriously, I love her forever now.

Ok, and my drugs are kicking in so I'm going to go kill things in a video game and I will share my exciting root canal tomorrow ! I know you're excited!
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Contacts In My Book And In My Eyes

I took this photo only so that I could text it to my friend with the exclamation THE NEW PHONE BOOKS ARE HERE THE NEW PHONE BOOKS ARE HERE, and then he forgot that part of The Jerk and my joke was lost.

Thankfully I could post it everywhere else online AND OTHER PEOPLE GOT IT.

Anyway, I love that pic. But back to today's topic.

I have been having trouble with distance and close up the past few months. It's gotten worse recently and since it'd been a solid two years since I had a new set of lenses I decided I would get new ones. I asked during my exam if I could try contacts. I haven't worn them since God was a boy, but I remember thinking I was cute in them when I was 20 something. They do apparently make some that have different scrips in the lenses but the eye doctor really didn't think they were "IT" for me. She suggested I do MONOVISION.

I would best describe MONOVISION as being able to SEE NOT SEE. Monovision means one eye has one scrip for far (my dominant eye) and one eye has a scrip for close vision.  It's hard to describe how disturbing it is. It was hard to get used to progressive lenses, and this feels harder. I can tell you that, I can FEEL which eye is doing the seeing and that is disconcerting at best. I'd like my eyes to be like my ears, just doing their job and me not really knowing they were there.

Putting makeup on is a challenge, oh sweet lord it's a challenge. Up close OMG CAN'T SEE. Far away - TOO FAR HOW CAN I GET MY EYELINER ON? I did a back and forth dance somewhat like a slow, ungainly Charleston from the mirror with a soft brown eyeliner trying to find the sweet spot in my vision that never did quite happen.

I realized that I now actually had to do my eyeshadow vs just slap some shit on that would be a weird distorted mess under my big old frames and lenses, and in my attempt to make a smokey eye, I flung eyeshadow into my eye (the contact LOVED that for sure) at which point my eyeliner started running off down my cheek making a brown smear. I tried to wipe it off and it seemed to make a thick paste beside my eye - thanks Ulta I love your powder who KNEW it made paste too? I decided at that point that the only solution was MORE MAKE UP and started tabbing on concealer over this spot of doom and eventually concealed plus powdered it out of existence.

My intense makeup preparation was really just busy work because I was nervous about my 11 am appointment with my dentist today. I've been enjoying the classic symptoms of vicious headaches and temperature sensitivity that herald a root canal. I was actually having pain on the top and bottom, but it turned out that the top tooth had some recession at the gum line and they painted some sealant on it and MAGIC it no longer hurts. But the bottom tooth has a crack and needs a specialist so to a new endodontist I go in the morning.

It hurt so bad this evening that I took a for real pain pill, as ibuprofen won't even touch this lance of fire and misery that is shooting through my jaw.

It's kind of starting to work now. Sorry if I get loopy somewhere along the way here.

My dentist office had another great thing - AMAZING LIGHTING IN THE LADIES ROOM.

I look pretty damn good for 46.

My dedication to Mary Kay nightcream and Egyptian Magic (and every other cream I can get my hands on) are paying off. And good DNA. Let's don't forget the value of good DNA.

I'm in so much pain that honestly, I am looking FORWARD to the root canal tomorrow.

One of my best friends told me today that I look like Isabelli Rossellini. Seriously, I love her forever now.

Ok, and my drugs are kicking in so I'm going to go kill things in a video game and I will share my exciting root canal tomorrow ! I know you're excited!
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Oral Surgery For The Win

46 almost 47 years ago two people had a baby. She was a colicky baby. She screamed and screamed and screamed at night. Sometimes they would get in the car and her father would drive around in his 57 Chevy, because the sound of the engine would soothe her to sleep. Of course, they weren't getting any sleep, but at least the screaming would stop.

Her mother would sit with her baby in her stroller, throughout the long nights, and gently rock the stroller back and forth with her foot, while playing solitaire, hoping the baby would fall asleep. Sometimes it would work. The father would stop by these late nights from his night job as a cabbie and bring egg rolls to her mother, a token payment for dark circles and exhaustion.

At some point, the baby decided she'd sleep if she had a bottle. By this I mean not that she would take a bottle and fall asleep after consuming it, but that if she was laying down with a bottle in her mouth and drinking on it, she'd fall asleep. This was a great solution for a baby who would not be comforted and for parents who desperately needed this child to sleep.

Until she grew her teeth.

Her teeth you see had been rotted by the pooling of milk that her mouth held at night from this bottle. Her baby teeth shattered and broke off. Her father had to hold her in the dentist chair and pieces of her broken teeth were removed. It was unpleasant. Her irrational and incredible fear of dentists was probably set in motion during those visits.

That baby is me.

Hard to believe I was a difficult baby I KNOW, but I apparently was. And it's no one's fault because who knew back then? Science wasn't what it is now. Hell my mother's baby book for me says that you shouldn't drink when pregnant because it's just too many calories and you don't want to put on weight and be unattractive. TIMES WERE DIFFERENT.

46 years later I'm still dealing with this crap though. I've had so many root canals. And now one of them has "gone bad". I went to the endodontist to see if they could "retreat" the root canal. NOPE. So my next option is? ORAL SURGEON.

I met a very nice man today who told me that if it all goes well, it'll be $184 dollars and they'll just pull the whole thing out. If it goes poorly, the root will shatter and they'll have to cut into my gum and stuff to get out the bits. Also, the tooth behind it had a root canal and they are SO closely packed together he's concerned pulling this one could shatter or knock that one loose - so loose that it has to come out.

I'm expecting the worst.

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Oral Surgery For The Win

46 almost 47 years ago two people had a baby. She was a colicky baby. She screamed and screamed and screamed at night. Sometimes they would get in the car and her father would drive around in his 57 Chevy, because the sound of the engine would soothe her to sleep. Of course, they weren't getting any sleep, but at least the screaming would stop.

Her mother would sit with her baby in her stroller, throughout the long nights, and gently rock the stroller back and forth with her foot, while playing solitaire, hoping the baby would fall asleep. Sometimes it would work. The father would stop by these late nights from his night job as a cabbie and bring egg rolls to her mother, a token payment for dark circles and exhaustion.

At some point, the baby decided she'd sleep if she had a bottle. By this I mean not that she would take a bottle and fall asleep after consuming it, but that if she was laying down with a bottle in her mouth and drinking on it, she'd fall asleep. This was a great solution for a baby who would not be comforted and for parents who desperately needed this child to sleep.

Until she grew her teeth.

Her teeth you see had been rotted by the pooling of milk that her mouth held at night from this bottle. Her baby teeth shattered and broke off. Her father had to hold her in the dentist chair and pieces of her broken teeth were removed. It was unpleasant. Her irrational and incredible fear of dentists was probably set in motion during those visits.

That baby is me.

Hard to believe I was a difficult baby I KNOW, but I apparently was. And it's no one's fault because who knew back then? Science wasn't what it is now. Hell my mother's baby book for me says that you shouldn't drink when pregnant because it's just too many calories and you don't want to put on weight and be unattractive. TIMES WERE DIFFERENT.

46 years later I'm still dealing with this crap though. I've had so many root canals. And now one of them has "gone bad". I went to the endodontist to see if they could "retreat" the root canal. NOPE. So my next option is? ORAL SURGEON.

I met a very nice man today who told me that if it all goes well, it'll be $184 dollars and they'll just pull the whole thing out. If it goes poorly, the root will shatter and they'll have to cut into my gum and stuff to get out the bits. Also, the tooth behind it had a root canal and they are SO closely packed together he's concerned pulling this one could shatter or knock that one loose - so loose that it has to come out.

I'm expecting the worst.

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More Root Canals Than You Can Shake A Stick At

I have now had five root canals in my life. One I've had repeated. So let's call that six. That seems like a lot to me.

My first root canal was almost 20 years ago. It was so unpleasant and torturous that I wouldn't let them crown it. It still is filled with the temporary they put on it back then. It hasn't given me ANY trouble since then and honestly I don't give a fig. It can stay like this.

Since then I've had other, better experiences. Clearly the technology has changed, and I've probably gotten better dentists over the years. I had two yesterday, and two crowns. Lately I've been so full of anxiety over anything medical ESPECIALLY the dentist, I decided to try this gas everyone talks about. People will say OH GET THE GAS ITS GREAT.

The gas is a lie.

Here is what I wanted. I wanted to feel calm. MENTALLY. I knew the gas didn't do pain management, but I wanted to not be freaking terrorized as they jabbed again and again trying to get me numb enough to drill. Did I mention I'm hard to get numb enough? I wanted to not be so freaking scared of the drilling that my heart nearly leaped out of my chest. I wanted not to feel like I was going to DIE in the chair.

Here is what I got. First of all it felt like nothing. No difference. Mentally, I felt like, NO CHANGE. No difference in the level of fear or worry or anxiety. I was still clawing at the walls of my mental cell. I did notice though that my heart wasn't trying escape through my throat. Small improvement. I wasn't clawing up my own hands, also improvement. But I didn't FEEL better. I wasn't less scared or relaxed.

When I got up to go to the bathroom I realized, I was PHYSICALLY impacted greatly. I felt like I weighed 500 pounds. I wasn't dizzy I was just sloggish. If sloggish were a word, that was what I was. I slogged to the bathroom, slogged back to the chair.

I felt annoyed. My bottom left molar kept stopping feeling numb. In the middle of drilling, this is not happy fun times.

I got home, and tried to eat a soft piece of toast by mostly gumming it in the spot where my wisdom teeth used to be.

My temp drown popped off.

I stuck it back on, and called. The receptionist told me if it came off again to come back.

Hours later, eating creamy yogurt, it came off again. I rushed back over, after 5pm, to have it resealed. They gave me a cement kit in case it came off again and said if it can't make it the two weeks before my perm crowns arrive then they will have to use a more perm cement and numb me back up to take it off. You can guess how likely I am to be ok with that.

Liquid diet for two weeks? Ok by me.

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More Root Canals Than You Can Shake A Stick At

I have now had five root canals in my life. One I've had repeated. So let's call that six. That seems like a lot to me.

My first root canal was almost 20 years ago. It was so unpleasant and torturous that I wouldn't let them crown it. It still is filled with the temporary they put on it back then. It hasn't given me ANY trouble since then and honestly I don't give a fig. It can stay like this.

Since then I've had other, better experiences. Clearly the technology has changed, and I've probably gotten better dentists over the years. I had two yesterday, and two crowns. Lately I've been so full of anxiety over anything medical ESPECIALLY the dentist, I decided to try this gas everyone talks about. People will say OH GET THE GAS ITS GREAT.

The gas is a lie.

Here is what I wanted. I wanted to feel calm. MENTALLY. I knew the gas didn't do pain management, but I wanted to not be freaking terrorized as they jabbed again and again trying to get me numb enough to drill. Did I mention I'm hard to get numb enough? I wanted to not be so freaking scared of the drilling that my heart nearly leaped out of my chest. I wanted not to feel like I was going to DIE in the chair.

Here is what I got. First of all it felt like nothing. No difference. Mentally, I felt like, NO CHANGE. No difference in the level of fear or worry or anxiety. I was still clawing at the walls of my mental cell. I did notice though that my heart wasn't trying escape through my throat. Small improvement. I wasn't clawing up my own hands, also improvement. But I didn't FEEL better. I wasn't less scared or relaxed.

When I got up to go to the bathroom I realized, I was PHYSICALLY impacted greatly. I felt like I weighed 500 pounds. I wasn't dizzy I was just sloggish. If sloggish were a word, that was what I was. I slogged to the bathroom, slogged back to the chair.

I felt annoyed. My bottom left molar kept stopping feeling numb. In the middle of drilling, this is not happy fun times.

I got home, and tried to eat a soft piece of toast by mostly gumming it in the spot where my wisdom teeth used to be.

My temp drown popped off.

I stuck it back on, and called. The receptionist told me if it came off again to come back.

Hours later, eating creamy yogurt, it came off again. I rushed back over, after 5pm, to have it resealed. They gave me a cement kit in case it came off again and said if it can't make it the two weeks before my perm crowns arrive then they will have to use a more perm cement and numb me back up to take it off. You can guess how likely I am to be ok with that.

Liquid diet for two weeks? Ok by me.

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