Groan Part 2

Gold Crown

Just got back from the dentist. I wasn't looking forward to this. It's been years since I've had any work done, other than the regular cleaning. They are only going to "look", but who knows where that will lead. Probably something unpleasant, this is the dentist's office after all.

I was there last week for a regular cleaning and told them about the pain I was getting. That's when I found out that the cracked tooth, the one that is going to need a crown one of these days, is a lower tooth, not an upper. They checked out the upper teeth but found nothing wrong. Okay, that's weird. Since then I have been trying to determine whether the pain might be coming from my lower jaw. On the other hand, I have been trying to keep any cold water away from that side of my mouth. Sometimes a little slips over there and I get a tingle, so I am getting some readings by accident. However, it is really hard to tell just where the pain is coming from. I guess I'm just chicken, being as I am not willing to take a mouthful of cold water and swish it around.

So today I go back for a more thorough inspection. Tooth tapping reveals nothing wrong. Blowing air doesn't seem to find anything wrong either, though I notice that my hands are clutching a bunch of fabric . Finally, she gets out the cold stuff, and I get several jolts. Evidently she tested several teeth. Some of them were instantaneous, some of them took a while, but all the teeth she tested responded sooner or later, which basically means they are alive. Alive is good. They put a temporary filling in the hole left by the part that broke off, and they are planning a crown for this same tooth. It's the most likely suspect for the source of my troubles.

While I am there, I find out that the assistant's husband had a heart attack on Friday. Fortunately one of his co-workers had the presence of mind to insist on taking him to the hospital where they put in a stent. Took them 25 minutes. He's home already and apparently doing fine.

Meanwhile the dentist herself had a crown done yesterday. Hers was free, done by a fellow dentist as part of a study group, which is like continuing education for dentists. Someone had come up with a new procedure for doing crowns and was training other people (dentists) to use it. So they had eight dentists and eight patients in one room all undergoing this same procedure. And after each step, everyone has to inspect everyone else's work, take photographs, comment, etc. So my dentist was there as a patient with her mouth open for six hours, four hours with a dam in place. Talk about misery. I would have taken a week to recover. She was back at work today.

So my little old cracked tooth doesn't sound too bad now.

Update January 2017 replaced missing image.