I had my first root canal, bright and early, at 8:30 this morning. It was my first true extensive dental procedure since getting all four of my wisdom teeth pulled, back in the late 90s. I have heard horrific details throughout my entire life about these so called Root Canals. Weird Al even wrote a song about it called 'Cavity Search'. A parody of a U2 Song.
I don't have one of those fears of the dentist and I am not quite sure why people really do. I guess maybe it depends on the dentist you have, but when you find a dentist who calms you and makes you feel secure about procedures, it makes the world of difference.
I've had this cavity for far too long and one dentist referred to it as "The Problem Child" but the pain of it came and I wanted to take care of it, but when the pain subsided it just sort of got lost on the back burner...until just recently.
I was at work this past week and I noticed that there was a quarter sized lump that formed on my jaw, figured "okay, this is not good. I need to get this taken care of sometime soon because now it's becoming abscessed" I went to bed that night around 11pm and when I woke up at 7am that quarter sized lump turned into the size of a baseball...and I looked like a goblin.
Now, when your tooth abscesses you have one of two urgent options; The first, get the tooth extracted and just remove the problem altogether (while allowing more problems to come in the future, like your teeth shifting and mangling) the second, get a root canal; Dun, Dun, Dun. If you prolong the abscess and wait, the pus and poison built up can leak into your blood stream and either go to your brain or your heart and ultimately will kill you.
Due to the immense pain I was going through I just wanted to avoid a root canal and get it removed and move on with my life, but my tooth was still salvageable so the smart decision was to get the root canal. The problem here with me was that I do not have insurance and I do not have a ton of extra cash to just pay up front, like most dentists want if you are the uninsured. I was quoted up to a grand by several dentists with a 10% discount, but I had to pay it all up front.
I was lucky enough, after calling around getting price quotes, that my Fiance's boss called his dentist and put in a good word for me and I was able to be put on a payment plan based on what I could afford each month; which we ended up starting with 100 dollars a month. The root canal only cost me 750 dollars. The dentist was really nice, and calming about the procedure and explained anything and everything about it.
I had to take antibiotics for a week prior to the procedure because my mouth was so swollen and they could have numbed me up but the swelling would've offset the numbing agent and I would've felt the drill and all of the poking and prodding and what not. So then, came the morning of my root canal. Like I said, I don't contain that fear like most do. People asked me if I was nervous about the procedure and my response to them was that I did not know what to expect so I was just going with the flow.
I brought along my IPOD to listen to while they were doing the root canal. Where I was sitting, I was facing a giant window looking out into the tree filled distance of the outside world. Just pondering and jamming out to the music playing in my ears. The dentist pricked my gums with this paper thin needle to inject the numbing agent. The only sensation I felt was the Novocaine seeping in, not the needle prick. It couldn't have been longer than a minute and a half and they were already starting the procedure, drill in hand.
Much to my surprise the actual root canal, drilling and packing the rubber dam, only took about an hour, maybe less. They had to take a few X-rays afterwards, so that took some extra time. I was in and out in close to two hours and I have had no pain as a grand end result. Even after the Novocaine wore off I felt no pain, just slight pressure on the tooth itself from the dentist messing around with it. The "Agonizing" part of the entire root canal procedure was my jaw tightening up from being kept open throughout the whole thing.
You'd be surprised, just like I was, that root canals get such a bad rap. You just have to think, we have come so far in medicine that how could you not, feel something. Maybe 20, 30, even 40 years ago I'm sure root canals may have been painful but not in the modern day. Root canals are not what they are cracked up to be and my whole experience in getting my first root canal (hopefully my last) was nothing but a great experience.
The horror story of a root canal seems like an old wives tale. So for anybody who is getting their first root canal and has a certain fear, I hope you read this prior to getting it done and I hope that all root canals are as pleasant as mine was. So stay calm, ignore what you've heard, just kick back and relax and all will be fine. That's my promise to you.
