Raise a hand if it hurts

Not being the type that is easily discouraged by my dad's dental issues, today it's my turn to sit under the glaring light of misery as I have got a dentist appointment to sort out a tooth that has been giving me jip for a couple of weeks now.

I've been putting the treatment off because I was not willing or able for that matter to pay the £ 300 that the local private dentists wanted and had been unable to find an NHS dentist remotely close to where we live to get it sorted, but by chance after a bit of ringing around I was given a number to ring and voila, as easy as it is to extract a tooth I got myself on to an NHS dentist books. So I made an appointment and by 12 noon I am sitting in the chair and having my tooth assessed.

So, she starts off by tapping my teeth to figure out which one is causing the problem, identifies it and then x-rays the tooth and its surrounding neighbours to get an idea of how bad the problem is. As it happens, it's pretty bad and she announces to me that I need a root canal treatment. Great! Luckily on the NHS this costs about 46 quid, so that's a relief.

I then get numbed up and given the statutory advice of "now, if anything hurts just raise a hand and we'll stop" and after a few minutes the dental nurse approaches with the suction pipe. No sooner had she gone within 50 paces of my bad tooth I was metaphorically clinging to the ceiling and recoiling from the complete AGONY of having freezing cold air sucked away from my apparently rather raw nerve. So no need to raise a hand, I had in fact raised my entire body! I mean the pain was so bad I ended up in tears... tears for god sake! This was exactly what I was hoping to avoid as the last time I went to the dentist they didn't wait long enough either and the exact same thing happened, so if I was every verging on the edge of a dental phobia I think I'm probably now 2 steps closer to it becoming an issue.

Several more injections and topical application of local anaesthetic later my face is numb enough that I wouldn't have felt a truck driving into it and the dentist continues to drill my tooth, file out the canals and then pull out the nerve. She then dresses it and I am out of there as fast as my stumpy legs can carry me (after making an appointment for next week to get it filled).

As you can imagine the rest of the day was spent unwittingly chewing my own face off until the anaesthetic stopped working, and doing actual work. Oh, and popping pain killers like skittles :)

Oh, if anyone else is struggling to find an NHS dentist, then ring 0118 918 3359 - they'll help you out.

Posted by Abi on the October 20, 2009 9:29 PM