Is It Safe?

If you are a movie buff you may get where this post is heading, due to the title I gave it.
If not, read on.....

I have my dentist appointment yesterday morning.
The result today is that I am not in as much pain and I have to go back in 2 weeks to have the root canal procedure finished, then another appointment with my regular dentist for a permanent filling put on the tooth.

The reason the procedure couldn't be finished in one day is because though I attempted to alert the dentist to the anomalies in my mouth, she didn't take my words seriously.  After all, I am just a dumb patient and I don't have a dental degree, right?

I told her about the tooth.....well the space beside the tooth she was going to work on, the space which once held a tooth......a tooth upon which a root canal was attempted and failed, due to the way in which my tooth's nerves were inaccessible.  That tooth had 3 nerves, one of which was inordinately thin and twisted in such a way that it couldn't be killed.  In the end, the dentist killed and filled 2 of the nerves and then encased the tooth in filling material so that the live nerve was protected.  I got about 5 years more before that conglomeration wore off and I ended up having the tooth pulled.

The new dentist "poo-pooed" what I had to say and set to work.  The first root, then the second root done, no problem.
Well no problem except for when she went into a nerve that wasn't deadened yet and I about levitated to the ceiling!!!
Then she went digging for #3.
And things came to a standstill.
She couldn't find the root.
She stopped 2 times during the procedure to take just another x-ray.
She finally found it and then kept having to change the size of her tool or whatever they use to get into the nerve.....each one being a smaller number than the last.  She started with a 6 and we were down to a 2 when she stopped the appointment and sent me on my way, still without accessing that last nerve.

I had been in the chair for over an hour and 15 min.
The novacaine was wearing off.
And she had another patient waiting to be seen......who probably had better roots than me too. lol

So I traded my throbbing tooth pain for soreness and pain in my mouth and gums and pain in my head, neck, shoulders and back muscles from all the clenching and stiffening my body went through during the procedure.

Then I got to reading the paper they gave me AFTER I had the work done and not BEFORE.....the one that tells me all the crap that could go wrong and how the root canal comes with no guarantee that the tooth can be saved, yadda, yadda, yadda......
Add in that they were drilling into a tooth with a crown and they make no guarantees that they won't screw up the crown(meaning it will break and I'll need a new one for another $900, of which insurance pays $400).

Whether they finish this root canal or not, I am out just shy of $1000 for it(before we get some $ back with our insurance).

The little voice in my head keeps telling me I should have just had that tooth pulled because that's where this is heading anyway.

I just wish it was over.....






Sluggy