“Matt, I’m going to make your tooth cold. I need you to raise your hand when it feels cold. Then rub your tongue over the tooth, and tell me when it feels normal again.”
Dr. Aaron Stobbe, my dentist, held an ice-cold Q-tip against one of my teeth. Within three seconds, I raised my arm, and after he removed the Q-tip, lowered it again about fives seconds later.
“Good, that’s a normal tooth,” he informed me.
Now the second tooth, immediately behind the one that was feeling some pressure sensitivity. Again, within three seconds, my arm was up, then down about five seconds later.
“Another normal tooth. Now let’s check out the one that’s having problems,” Dr. Stobbe said.
He held the Q-tip against my tooth. And we waited.
And waited.
And waited.
After about fifteen seconds, he explained to me that this test told him that the nerve inside this tooth is probably dead. X-Rays were inconclusive, but the cold-test was: an earlier filling had led to the death of the root.
I would need A ROOT CANAL!
“Well, we have some time right now, if you like,” Dr. Stobbe said, “we can always skip lunch”.
“Sounds good to me!” I responded, and sat back in the chair.
Now, according to Aaron Stobbe, for root canals they usually use a “Dental Dam”. This is a piece of rubber stretched over a frame to isolate a tooth from the rest of the teeth. But since the tooth was obviously already infected and dead, there was little need. He numbed me up (including a shot to the roof of my mouth that stung rather painfully), and then began the drilling.
Those of you who have had fillings before know what this is like. Really, at this point in my life, thirty years old, it’s not nearly as traumatic as it used to be. No big deal.
But something was different this time. He went deeper. And suddenly, my mouth and nose were filled with the most disgusting flavor I’d ever encountered. However, I knew it well.
“‘at hells like ro’en hotatos!” I exclaimed past his fingers.
“That smells like rotten potatos, huh? Yeah, it’s pretty gross,” responded Dr. Stobbe. “I think I mentioned, though, that there is usually a little outgassing when we break through to the nerve.”
Then he began pulling out the files. Each file is about the size of a sewing needle, with a fat, round end about the width of your pinky to hold on to. He’d use each file for just a few seconds, then get a new one. He explained that these got down into the root of the tooth and scraped out all the gunk there.
Oy, veh, and gunk it was. That stink persisted the whole time. I mean, I’ve farted good in my time, and had some really ripe ones, so I know it’s possible for my body to contain some repulsive smells. But this was just beyond imaginable, a combination of rotting fish with rotting potatos and terrible intestinal distress. I found it hard to believe my tooth harbored such foulness.
Once all the files were done (which took about fifteen minutes), he inserted a long, bended needle with a syringe of yellowish liquid. He explained it was basically bleach, similar to that used on clothes, to help disinfect the tooth. Given the smell, that makes perfect sense to me… I wouldn’t want any of that cruddy stuff sticking around.
He finished up, after putting in the disinfectant, by capping it off with a soft Plaster-of-Paris like substance. He informed me this plug was just temporary, and he’d need to see me in two weeks to “build it up”. I scheduled the appointment on the way out, rinsed with a glass of water to attempt to clear the lingering taste/smell from my mouth, called my wife, and got a ride home.
Ahh, then yesterday. I hope this story is moderately entertaining for those of you who haven’t had a root canal!
Yesterday I saw the dentist again. This time, they used the Dental Dam because it is most important that no germs make it down into the tooth. It was actually kind of cool, like a little Dream Catcher made of rubber… well, OK, there are no holes or anything, but I could kind of talk around it. I also opted for the Bite Blocker, a piece of plastic to wedge my mouth open, because holding my mouth open for that long aggravates my Trigeminal Neuralgia horribly.
He broke out the drill to break up the Plaster-of-Paris-type stuff, then used some more files to scrape out lingering bits of nerve ending and fluff from down inside the tooth canals. There was only the slightest pain this time, other than that annoying “shoot the roof of your mouth” novacaine. Again he flushed it out with the bleach-like solution.
Now, this time, after filing and cleaning, he used tweezers and these tiny strips of paper. According to him, he needed to dry the inside of those canals for the next step. The next step was to inject a type of rubber into the canals. After he’d pump some in there, he’d use a sharp metal tool to push and spread the rubber more, then chop off the exposed lumps of rubber. I wish I could have watched 🙂
Once the rubber was in the canals, the rest of the operation was very much like your basic filling: pump in some filling material, use a little ultraviolet light to cure it, pump in some more, cure it, and more, cure it. Then, finally, he ground down the epoxy-like stuff to more closely resemble a tooth (I really have trouble seeing the difference, except that a dentist’s work now is a bit “smoother” than a natural tooth), had me bite on the test strip to make sure my bite was even, ground a little more, and said “have a nice day!”
Total price: $650.
A root canal definitely wasn’t the hellish ordeal I thought it would be. It’s no picnic, but the second half of the procedure was peaceful enough that, actually, I fell asleep partway through it! I woke myself up because I was snoring!
I’m going to remember the “cold test”, though. I think I may have a second tooth, that also had a “deep filling” that may have damaged the root, which may require the same treatment. This time, because so much of the tooth was saved, there was no need for a cap according to my dentist. We’ll see how it goes I guess!
