As long as I can remember, I’ve been afraid of the dentist. I have only a vague memory of getting a tooth pulled before I was twelve. Does it mean anything that I can remember the name of my dentists? When I was twelve years old, a softball hit me in the mouth and damaged my front tooth, causing the root to die. I remember sitting in the dentist chair and he was injecting novacaine into the gum above my tooth and he hit a nerve…and…I sneezed, with the needle in my gum. I can still remember him yelling at me and I think that’s what started my lifelong fear (maybe more like dislike or mistrust) of the dentist began. By the way, that dentist’s last name was Blessing. He was not.

I don’t know if you can inherit bad teeth, but my dad had all his teeth pulled in either the late 1950s or early 1960s. I remember him carrying around a spit can. So Gross. But if you can inherit bad teeth, I (as well as one of my brothers) inherited it. (It could also be that he was raised extremely poor and probably never saw a dentist.)

When I was in my late teens, I went to another dentist and he told me I had 18 (!) cavities. (And it’s not like I didn’t brush daily.) I would sit in the dentist chair and clutch my hands together or clutch the arm of the chair and he would scold me for doing this, telling me to relax, which only made it worse. He once did a root canal on a tooth without novacaine because he said I didn’t need it since the tooth was dead. He was very, very wrong. I definitely remember his name, but I won’t mention it because I heard he later committed suicide.

I had a great dentist for about fifteen years (Dr.Bryant) who promised me he would never hurt me, and he never did. He retired. I went to a different dentist. He was a nice guy, but his receptionist was rude and his bookkeeper kept messing up my account. I found another one I really liked but he died of cancer (Dr. Quade). I started seeing his wife, who was also a dentist, but she moved out of the city (and out of my dental network.) I found a dentist in my network who repaired a filling in my eye tooth and managed to chip the tip off that tooth and wedged the tooth against the other so hard that he cracked the tip of my front tooth (the remaining good one) (Dr. Wheatley).

I found a wonderful Periodontist who did all my implants. I had some pretty traumatic experiences in his office, but he and his staff were wonderful and caring but he retired. (Dr. Hoppin).

One morning last December, I woke up and noticed my lower jaw tooth was sore. I didn’t really think much of it since I had just started wearing my “Mandibular Advancement Device” again. Incidentally, this was the same tooth that the device became stuck on the first time I put it in my mouth. That dentist ended up pulling the crown off that tooth to get the device out of my mouth. He said that had never happened before. Lucky me.

But the next day, instead of the tooth feeling better, it was much worse and had started to hurt below the tooth. I decided to find a dentist in my network. I found one that was only two miles away and he was able to fit me in the same day.

He xrayed my tooth and said he believed it was cracked and I needed to see an oral surgeon. He prescribed me a “Z-Pak” antibiotic (Azithromycin–not usually prescribed for dental infection) and his nurse said I should take two pills that night and I should be feeling better in the morning. Next morning, not only was I not feeling better, it was worse and my jaw started to swell. I called this dentist and told him I thought I needed another antibiotic, which had worked well for me in the past (Ciproflaxin), but he told me he didn’t want to prescribe anything else to avoid me getting “C-diff” (C. diff, short for Clostridiodes difficile, a bacterium that can cause diarrhea and colitis, a common infection, especially among those who have recently taken antibiotics, are older, or have recently been in a healthcare setting. C. diff infections can range from mild to severe, sometimes requiring hospitalization.) He said to just finish the antibiotics and see an oral surgeon.

I have to wonder what planet these dentists live on. As though I could call an oral surgeon and be seen immediately…I couldn’t even find one in my network. Two days after my call to him, I was at Urgent Care and the PA prescribed me the Ciproflaxin. It worked well and I got better.

I found an oral surgeon and much to my reluctance, made an appointment for the extraction. As the date of my appointment approached, I seriously considered cancelling it. I just didn’t have good feelings about walking into a dentist’s office and having a tooth pulled by someone I had never even met before. Lucky for me, on the date my appointment was scheduled, a large snowstorm was predicted and the appointment was cancelled. I didn’t really want to have the tooth pulled so I decided to wait.

Fast forward five months and I woke up with a pain in front of my ear. I went to Urgent Care again and since there was no pain in my tooth, she diagnosed it as TMJ. Two days later, I knew it was my tooth. I decided to go to an Emergency Dental Clinic in town (since I wasn’t happy with the last dentist I had seen). I got in the same day, the dentist had the tooth x-rayed and said it might be broken and I needed to see an oral surgeon. He never even looked in my mouth and just prescribed me three days (!) of an antibiotic. That was on a Friday and when I called and asked about why he only prescribed three days of the antibiotic, I was told if I wasn’t better by Monday, to call him back. On Sunday, I was very swollen and in constant pain so I returned the Urgent Care. When the PA looked at my face and saw how swollen it was, she prescribed a ten-day regimen of antibiotics.

My insurance company sent me a five-page list of oral surgeons in my network. Sounds like a good amount of choices, right? Not right. Most of the surgeons on the list were either listed duplicate times with several different dental practices or denied taking my insurance. When I questioned both the dental practices and my insurance company about these discrepancies, both pointed fingers at the other as to who was responsible for the incorrect information.

I found a practice in my network, but as a new patient, I couldn’t be seen until July (this was May). I made the appointment but decided to keep looking and found another dentist right next door to my former periodontist’s office. I was able to make an appointment within two weeks and the dentist agreed that the tooth needed to be extracted. I liked her and felt comfortable with her (even if she did look like she was twelve years old, lol.) There was also an oral surgeon associated with their practice, so I reluctantly made an appointment for the extraction (luckily six weeks in the future).

Two 5 mg pills of Diazepam and only one meltdown about halfway through the procedure, it was over. The tooth was out and the bone grafting material in for my future implant. Now to wait six months for the graft to heal for the post to be placed. Was it as bad as I thought it would be? Yes it was. I’m a wus.

**Even while I’m whining, I realize how very blessed I am that it’s only a tooth (fixable) that is causing my pain. So many people have to endure so much more.