Uphill Both Ways

Is It Safe?

When I was younger, dental care was one of those luxuries reserved for kids in the comfortable middle class, much like summer camps and not eating corn flakes for dinner 3 nights/week. I’m amazed that my parents could afford to take me to get my vision looked at every few years; with unexplainable severe myopia, I know it was an expensive prospect (hell, I still can’t afford to re-up my prescription every 6 months like I’m supposed to). Fortunately, my teeth were straight, and I took middling care of them, so I managed to get to adulthood before seeing a dentist (with the exception of an emergency tooth extraction).

Last year I had about 12 fillings in my back molars done—the effect of never seeing a dentist and an almost visceral dislike of flossing. Some of my fillings are quite large; two were actually stop-gap measures to keep me from getting full crowns (an expensive proposition; crowns run up to a grand, and my insurance only covers 65% of the cost). During the Superbowl, I cracked one of those fillings while chewing on Smart Foods White Cheddar Popcorn (this is important; I love White Cheddar popcorn). My normal dentist, a nice lady who pretty competently took care of my teeth and discussed all my options, applied extra resin to the site of the crack—it didn’t take out much of my original structure, so she was able to fill it in and replace some of the filling that came out.

Yesterday after work I was in a rush. I had enough time to run to the convenience store across from the train stop and grab a drink and some snack food for dinner before racing to the House of Blues for the Music of BSG concert series on my husband’s behalf—he had ponied up the cash for a VIP ticket for me. Snack food, snack food…I opted for Smart Foods White Cheddar Popcorn. This was my mistake.

I was about two handfuls into the bag when I crunched down on a fossilized kernel. My tooth quite literally exploded under the pressure—I had about 2-3 seconds before the pain kicked in, as I spat out clumps of metal, broken pieces of tooth, and a modest amount of blood as discreetly as I could. My entire back molar was gone down to the gum line, with only jagged pieces left. After a short investigation, I discovered no one would be available to treat it that night, so I went to the concert (which I enjoyed, in part because I was downing amaretto sours), had an adventure of an evening, and woke up today to find ANY dentist open in the area on Saturdays.

I won’t reveal the name of the clinic, in large part because I have to go back in two weeks. I got the distinct vibe they were a “low income” and/or “cash only” operation, judging by the broken chairs, lack of walls or privacy, and frighteningly limited resources. Turns out, I needed an emergency root canal (I wasn’t experiencing much pain beyond a monster headache on that side, but I couldn’t eat anything without seeing spots), and a full crown—judging by my previous X-rays (oh yeah, the x-rays they took of the tooth had to be printed out on an old B&W inkjet printer; there was no light box), I’d lost about 90% of the original tooth and exposed the nerve. Now here’s where we ran into a problem.

I’m allergic to lidocaine, novocaine, and pretty much anything else from that family of anesthetic. Typically, this isn’t a problem—most dentists use synthetic numbing agents, which no one’s allergic to—but I once had an encounter with real lidocaine (when having a front filling done) that felt like molten lava had been injected into my sinuses. I noted this on my info sheet, and then found out…they don’t have synthetics in stock at this office. My options were to go completely under for the procedure or, since the procedure isn’t really a serious endeavor, we could do a fast session with topical numbing gel. I had two thoughts on this:

1. The most expensive part of my wisdom teeth surgery was the gas, and I sure as shit didn’t want to go under at this place—I was afraid I’d wake up without my wallet, my pants, or one of my ovaries. Also, I had no one to take me home; my husband was gone, and pretty much all my best friends were around 1200 miles away or more.

2. I am going to die here.

So I had a root canal and crown done without any anesthetic except the numbing gel. Honestly, the root canal wasn’t the really bad part of it—that was pretty quick, though mighty painful, but getting the temporary crown put on was hellish, mostly due to the pressure involved with the build up, and the fact that it takes a while to set. My jaw still feels like it’s been hit with a sledgehammer, and I’ve been applying a tried and true anesthetic pretty much all afternoon—Kentucky bourbon.

I have to go back in two weeks for my actual crown (right now I just have the temporary), which ought to be a good time all over again. The dentist himself wasn’t bad, though he was switching between me and the patient next to me (who was having dentures done, or something…and yes, I was watching to make sure he washed his hands and switched gloves), and offhandedly mentioned that he had worked at the local prison. Mostly, I can’t wait to have the leisure to shop around for another dentist.