Dental impressions

Thought I'd share a few thoughts on - well, on dental crown preparation. As you do, if you've just sat through this procedure. For after a couple of false starts - nerve needing removed, antibiotics needed for minor infection - we at last got the mouth full of gunk that I'd been looking forward to the last time I visited my dentist. And that was the first surprise: the gunk used for taking impressions (alginate, I believe - like cheap non-dairy ice cream, it's made from kelp) was pink, not blue or bright green as in the past. And dolloped into its plastic frame, it was jolly cold, so that even my numbed jaw twangled unpleasantly as I sat gaping, trying not to gag. And what was with all these wee bits of warm wax? I'm sure I didn't have these pressed variously to my teeth on previous occasions.

And of course the temporary crown makes me feel like a hippo. Quite apart from the fact that it's strangely blobby in shape (it's a molar, top) and rubs my tongue horribly, I've been used to having very little tooth at all in that space for months. Now I have what might be a dod of chewing gum stuck there, and every morsel of food I eat adheres grimly to it. Apparently it has to be this size because the tooth - or what's left of it - is so comprehensively couped that it needs to be protected till the crown is ready. And that, O Best Beloved, won't be for a fortnight.

And the dentist? He remained irritatingly cheerful throughout. Bless his cotton scrubs.

Learning by experience

I’ve decided on a new approach to life, that of viewing everything potentially unpleasant as A New Experience. And they don’t come much more unpleasant, do they, than root canal treatment? For that, O Best Beloved, was the experience which dominated this wet and windy morning – or at least one hour, twenty minutes of it. And the couple of hours beforehand spent in dismal contemplation, and the couple of hours after till my jaw thawed out, by which time it was afternoon and the sun had come out.

But to the treatment. I’ve had this before, of course, over the years. But today was the first time I’ve had it done with what felt like a latex hanky draping my mouth. It was, apparently, tucked into a metal clamp round the tooth to be treated and arranged in such a fashion as to prevent any gubbins from the procedure going down my throat, while – and this was the important bit – preventing any of my bacteria-laden saliva from contaminating the growing canal in my tooth.

At first I thought, in a tragic sort of way, that I might suffocate. The smell of rubber was not reassuring, and as it sealed off my mouth I forgot that I had a nose which would still function. But I have to admit that in the end it was easier, once I had learned the spasmodic but miniscule movements which would enable swallowing while still breathing. I didn’t have to worry about what was going down with the spit, and my tongue was tucked away from the horrors of the “hot instrument” which was going to “burn away” the surplus rubber filling protruding above the nerve-canal when he’d filled it. (“He” is my 16-year-old dentist)

Ok, maybe it was my fault for asking to be kept informed of what was going on. As I said, it was my tooth. But the hot thing and the smoke and the smell did worry me somewhat, and I did have a brief over-imaginative moment wondering what happened if his hand slipped. Too much hot rubber in the mouth – the mind, dear reader, boggled. And now I've found this video which shows me just what it all looked like - except that my rubber dam was, I think, fawn.

However, all is, so far, well. My jaw is returned to me, and I am as yet drug-free. Next appointment will involve the green gunk, the impression-taking stuff – but it’s not for over a month. Much can happen in a month. And here’s to the child-dentist of Dunoon…

The problem of ...

Been a bit obsessed by teeth recently, largely because mine have seen better days and are beginning to complain about my treatment of them. Mistaking an olive stone for a sultana while eating an interesting salad in Tenerife was only one of the mistakes for which I am now paying - both in trauma and, I suspect, in cash.

But it was while I was reclining, somewhat alarmingly, with my head lower than my feet at the behest of the charming 16-year-old who came to the rescue during today's emergency dental appointment, that I began to consider once more the age-old problem. Not, as you might think, the problem of pain, for by this time I'd had so many injections that my entire face felt as if it belonged to someone else. No, the perennial problem in this position - head back, mouth agape and full of implements and gloved fingers - is the problem of spit.

No matter how assiduous the dental nurse with her wee hoover-thingy, the moment she has to turn away to mix minute quantities of some tooth-filling substance I feel that I will shortly drown in spit. The front of my mouth may feel like a dust-bowl, but somewhere around the memories of tonsils there is a sudden rush of saliva - and I have to swallow. Only I daren't, because I have become convinced that stuck down there under my tongue is a lump of filling/tooth/debris which to swallow would mean a slow death. But swallow I must - there is a kind of convulsion, a gagging sensation .... oh no....choking ...

And the twelve-year-old (he's younger by the minute, this one) asks brightly: You all right? And continues blithely to fill, scrape, buff, do unimaginable things with tiny bits of cotton wool (apparently I have some stuck inside my tooth right now) as I make a huge effort to relax and think of the absurd Simpsons poster stuck to the ceiling above the chair. Surely the torment cannot last for ever.

I just wish this child genius had a better taste in music...