REDZMAN

Well, I had 2 dental appointments in the past week, and to say the least, I was scared as hell. I've had some REALLY bad dental issues in the past, almost exclusively with the horrible dentists in the US Army.


So yesterday, I had to go in and have some work done I'd never had done before.

1. Root Canal.

2. Abscess in same tooth.

3. Post installed.

4. Buildup of tooth.

5. Crown.


All at one sitting.

Honestly, it was the absolute best dental experience ever. I felt no pain, at all, during the entire thing. MY jaw is a bit tender from all the pressure from yesterday, but between teh vicoden and how careful this dentist was, I can't believe I had no pain at all.


So while there, and on the verge of pissing myself, I thought about the horror stories I'd heard of root canals before, and about my own personal terrible experiences.

Wanna share?



I'll share a few.


1. Fort Riley Kansas, 1996. I arrive at Fort Riley and during inprocessing at my unit (HHB 4/1 Field Artillery, HOOAH!), I get told to go for dental screening. I go, nothing really bad happens as it's just a screening, and get told I need my wisdom teeth pulled out. I say no. They tell me I have to have them taken out, it's Army policy. I ask why I need them taken out. They explain the reasons you need them pulled and I agree at the end, and make an appointment for it.

Fast forward to a month later. I show up, get in there, and they start injecting me with nova cane. Let me clarify this, they start injecting me with NOVA CANE, with nothing to even try to numb up my gums first. I literally TEAR one arm off of the dental chair I'm in, as they inject me about 6 times per wisdom tooth. Then the simple part. Upper right? Check, pops out like an ice cube from a tray. Upper left? Roger that, pops right out. Lower left? Bah, not a problem.

Lower right?

Hellluuuuu?

Won't come out. They pry on it for some time, and it won't come out at all. The nova cane starts wearing off, so they inject me 5 more times, and go to talk. The dentist comes back (we had to move to another room because of the broken arm on the chair), and tells me they have to make an incision in my gums, so they can look. No xrays, nothing else, just going to do some exploratory surgury. He reaches in there, and cuts my gumline back about 1/2 inch. There's some problem with the tooth holding on, so they pull out a, I swear to god, DREMEL with a cutting disk, and cut the tooth into 3 pieces. It comes out just fine. They pack the holes, stitch me up, give me some antibiotics, percocet, and light duty for a week.

I head home. During my "light duty", I start noticing my lower right jaw starts pulsating whenever I get up and down, pushups, picking something up, whatever. Then I notice that it's pulsating all the time, but after calling the dentists, they say it's nothing. The weekend comes, I'm in my room drinking and playing my genesis (Yes, my sega genesis), and something just POPS in my mouth, and it's filled with blood all of a sudden. I go to the sink, spit out the blood, and start freaking out. Blood is gushing out of my mouth, I'm packing it with gauze trying to stop the bleeding, and it won't stop at all. I grab a foam cup, get my keys and wallet, and head down to the duty office, spitting into the cup. By the time I get downstairs, this 20 OZ cup is 1/3 full of blood. The duty guy throws me in his truck and takes me down to the emergency room, where I'm dizzy and can't keep focused. The emergency dentist takes me in, gets the bleeding to stop, and puts in 2 more stitches. Woohoo! Light duty for 2 months!

I go home.

The pulsating stays around and isn't doing me well, and next thing you know (6 months to the DAY from my wisdom teeth extraction), we are out at Fort Irwin, in the middle of the Mojave desert, doing our annual training. I'm sitting there the last day out in the field, eating a Port Chow Mein MRE, and one of the little Chow Mein sticks hits me in the lower right part of the jaw, making me wince in pain. I finish my food, look in the mirror of my Humvee, and see something sticking out of that part of my jaw. I reach back with the pliars on my swiss army knife, and pull out a 1.25 inch long jagged sliver of tooth. The pain is gone, the pulsating is gone, but I had been carrying that around in my jaw for 6 months.



2. Not as lengthy, but this one almost got me in some serious trouble.

In the service, you sometimes get appointments made FOR YOU. So one day, I come out to morning formation, and get called out with a few other folks. Seems I have to go to the dentist again. This is in 2000. Anyways, we march over to the dentist, I don't know why I'm going but I figure it's a regular checkup. I get into the dentist, they put me in a chair after 45 minutes of CNN, and put a bib on me, without saying a word. A Colonel (full bird mind you) walks into the cubicle in his surgical garb, and without saying a word, pulls out a syringe and sticks it in my mouth.

I flipped out, punched him in the face to get him away from me, got out of the chair and got ready to kick his ass. The MP's got called, they tried to arrest me, but my unit First Sergeant showed up before they got it all calmed down. Seems I was there to get a filling I didn't know about, and the dentist thought I knew. The f***er came in and stuck me with some nova cane before he even introduced himself or told me what was going on. They started Courts Martial proceedings but I got away with no trouble at all once I explained what happened.


So anyways, that's my top 2. What do you have?

Blaze

well i got one story. i was about 17 and i had to get a root canal done, well they kept injecting sumtin in my gums no clue what it was but it wasnt enough, the first part wasnt bad but then i had an emergency eccex or sumtin and had to cut my gums open, when doing this they put a towel over my eyes and i felt pressure holdin down on me, by the time they where done stiching me up i was shaking and crying, keep in mind my family including moms only seen me cry 4 times that being one of them, so they where freaked out pretty bad, and i think it was from more of shock than pain. so ya thats my story

Tibbychick

Last summer I was at the beach, got one of those big hot dogs, took a bite, and felt shooting pain in my tooth. I was in misery the rest of the time. A couple days later I had to go to see a dentist, which Ive put off for years since i dont have any insurance. And now Im in Canada so thats even worse. I also had teeth pulled long ago and remember how uncomfortable and scary it was. So here I am dreading it. The guy looks in my mouth and says the tooth is rotted so bad that there's almost nothing left. It was the top one all the way in the back, the very last one. Guess I didnt brush throuroughly enough back there, lol. He pulled it, and it only cost me $90. The pain wasnt so bad at all, definetly a relief from the pain before it was pulled. He told me I'd have to come back to get the one in the back on the other side pulled as well. It's starting to hurt bad now at times. I dont wanna go through all that again, but Im gonna have to do it. I can feel the tooth and how there's nothing left but sharp edges, lol. I got to keep the other one, it's pretty sick looking. Other than that though, my teeth are great.

01tibby

people with a fear of the dentist make me giggle. sure i've had some unpleasant&painful experiences, but i just can't see how grown men can cower at the idea of going to get dental work done.

Tibbychick

The worst is when they stick the needle in your gums. Other than that its fine. I was laughing when he pulled the tooth. Felt so odd.

REDZMAN

Pain man, you obviously didn't read the one I went through above. There have been others.

Yesterday though, this guy was great. Used some gel stuff to numb it before he injected the nova cane, I never felt any of it.

01tibby

sticking the needle in the mouth is fine. the only thing that ever freaked me out about the dentist is when i got stuck, then stuck again, and again....

must have been like 15 times total all over the mouth, a couple where he moved the needle around once it was inside my skin too. that did suck.

REDZMAN

Yeah, those are the ones I was talking about. LOL It's funny though, as I've had 2 knee surguries, and my big toe on my right foot fuzed, and I'm more scared of the dentist.

Sousake Sagara

My Girlfriend went about 10months ago to get a tooth pulled, due to tooth aches and pain during and after eating. I was in the room while they pulled her tooth, she has very little pain tolerance. She screamed a few times and cried while they tried to pull her tooth, that didn't worry me all that much. It was the sound of the tooth breaking and watching the Dentist using what looked like automotive pliers to wrench and pull on this tooth that sent shivers down my spine.


Fast forward about 4 months, I start getting this slight pain in my tooth behind my lower canine tooth. I been pretty good with my teeth and never really had to get any work done. After about a week I was in agony, never had a tooth ache before, it was killing me doing 10 hour shifts at work putting up with it. I was due to go on holidays up to Queensland in a few days and didn't want to spend any money on dental work and tried to suck it up and bear it.
After about 3 days, I had to have it removed, couldn't stand the pain any longer. I booked into a dentist the day before I was to get onto the plane for Queensland, I was sh|tting myself in the chair thinking over all the pain my girlfriend had gone through and those horrible sounds, I was nearly in a pool of my own sweat. I got jabbed with 3 needles, after about 30 seconds I was totally numb in my mouth and the dentist yanked the tooth in about 5, no pain at all. I felt so sheepish after worrying myself with all those thoughts of pain, etc. 200 bucks later it was all over.


Now the Girlfriend is getting wisdom tooth pains....... laugh.gif

BlizagaXx

Dental is nothing to me... As you guys saw in my 10 things post, I've had my front tooth reworked like 6 times or so, thats 3 hours or so each time for that tooth. The 3rd time was the worst though, that one took about 5 hours. 5 hours, mouth open, no swallowing except the water they jet down your throat. But not all that bad. I've had metal crowns on my teeth a couple times when I was younger, I've had fillings, and one time I had 5 teeth pulled at one time. I wanted to pull one of em myself, so the doctor put me in front of a mirror and let me go at it. smile.gif I have an EXTREMELY high tolerance for pain, so little shit like dental work is no issue for me. I never need the gel to numb me before hand or anything, just the needle. Even for normal blood tests and everything, IV's, everything, I don't even wince. I don't get numbed when they drain the blood from my knee, I just let them do it. I've gotten it drained 5 times, I think there has been 12 vials of blood total taken from my knee. Even when I broke my knee, I tried to get up and keep running but my knee just gave out. I feel more comfortable in a dentist office than I do in a doctors office for a routine checkup! Wisdom teeth are coming out later this year too, that should be a blasty.