Dentist Days

I had my first dental appoinment in about ten years on April 13th. At 7am. Yay for mornings. It was also my first time having X-rays taken, so that was an experience. I have a pretty small mouth and a terrible gag reflex, so it took awhile and totally sucked.

Things in dentistry have definitely changed since the last time I made a visit. They have this computer technology that allows them to look at the X-rays and see if any areas look sketchy. They can then use some analytical tool to see if the program thinks it might be a cavity or something. They pretty much map out what they think they'll see before I even open my mouth.

The exam itself wasn't too bad. I'm not a fan of being poked in the gums, but I'm tough. I learned that although I'd been away from professional care for ten years, I was looking ok. I had a few minor cavities, some plaque, and I need to floss. Not too bad.

I scheduled a deep cleaning appointment for the next day and went to work. And had a terrible headache all afternoon.

The deep cleaning was similar to what I remember from the last time I was at the dentist. They have this ultrasonic thing that blasts crap off your teeth. What was definitely new was the suction thing. No rinsing and spitting anymore. They suck the water out of your mouth with a hose. That took some getting used to.

I had my first of two filling appointments (one for each side of my mouth) last Tuesday. At 7 am. Once again, not too bad. My small mouth is a definite issue and most of the discomfort came from the streching and pinching rather than the drilling and filling. And Novocaine or whatever they shoot in my mouth to numb it? Weird. I'd never had that before either. Burns when you swallow though, so don't do that.

I took some tylenol as I went back to work and was ok for most of the day. Toward the end of the evening (I had an IMA meeting that night) I was starting to feel phantom vibrations from the drill and that was kind of painful, but by the next day it was pretty much gone.

I had the second appointment scheduled for Thursday but I took Wednesday off because I was sick and I still was sneezing and coughing too much on Thursday for me to be comfortable with someone sticking a drill in my face. So that's rescheduled for May 21st since I have vacation that whole week of Catherine's graduation anyway. Final step is a final cleaning in June.

Ok, that was a lie. Final step for the dentist is a cleaning in June.

I kind of omitted the whole oral surgeon part.

I knew going into this that the dentist was going to take one look at my mouth (or in this case, the X-rays) and say "out with the wisdom teeth!" (a la the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland.) The first thing out of his mouth when he looked at my full mouth X-ray was "you still have your wisdom teeth? How old are you?" Great. So, yeah, he referred me to an oral surgeon for a second opinion, but it's pretty much guaranteed that they'll want to take them all out. They're all in some state of decay and one or two are pretty close to nerves so it should be a good time. I have a consultation with the oral surgeon on Monday. Boo.