> (it doesn’t hurt!)
It doesn't hurt for you. Some people, including myself, have had root canals that have almost caused worse pain than when I was in the ICU.
It doesn't hurt for you. Some people, including myself, have had root canals that have almost caused worse pain than when I was in the ICU.
A dentist finally slowed down. Noticed my tears. Asked. Had a conversation. Tried freezing me in other places. Worked perfectly. She guessed that my nerves are anatomically weird.
I'd find that more painful than the treatment.
Eventually one dentist suggested trying the injection 15-20 mins before the filling started. I'd go in, get a jab, then go back out and wait while they saw another patient.
Now there is no pain at all. I could literally fall asleep in the chair. What a difference.
Medical care seems to have a lot of weird country-specific traditions, e.g. in Hungary it's apparently common to fill small kids' healthy teeth if the groves are too deep so they're simpler to clean and they don't get cavities.
I had never heard of such a thing before moving here, and I genuinely can't tell if it's a brilliant innovation or an insane post-soviet tradition that needs to go away.
Having experienced both (frozen and not frozen), I can't tell what's better. The feeling when they're digging in the tooth without freezing isn't great but it's not painful either; the feeling when they put a needle in your gum to inject the product isn't great either but then you don't feel the procedure. I'd say it's different but equivalent in terms of discomfort.
I've never heard this called "freezing". I assume you're being injected with lidocaine, the dentist's non-psychoactive best friend. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidocaine
This family of molecules is well known for causing numbness in motor and sensor nerves; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEI4qSrkPAs
Filling in grooves needs to go away. It will change the bite/shift the jaw which theoretically can lead to other problems. Not to mention, the grooves are there to help provide a grinding surface for vegetable matter, etc. If you make your teeth perfectly flat, they won't be as effective. Making your teeth flatter is actually reducing/damaging the effectiveness of your teeth. If it was a good idea herbivores would have teeth as flat as a tabletop.
Where I live, as a kid my dentist filed the tips of my canines down a little. Why? Who knows, they weren't bothering me before. It was something that was decided upon without consulting me.
I am just going to have the tooth pulled. They argued either try to save it, or just have it taken out.
I dread dentists, and especially endodontists/root canals.
There are enough reports of severe pain and I want no part of it, unless I go the expensive sleep dentistry route.
But the second time I just had my doctor do it with his anesthetic, and it wasn't much worse than a filling for me. A little unpleasant but not unbearable.
On the negative side, either that or some other dental work I had done close to the same time must have damaged a nerve and now I haven't been able to really taste anything in the front half of my tongue the past three years (still can on the back of my tongue, at least, thankfully).
I'd think the bigger concern with a root canal is the not-insignificant likelihood they will break your jaw.
Or not get the whole root out, causing an infection and need to get the procedure done again. (Never have a dentist do your root canal, folks)
And to be clear, the pain has been after my root canal, not during (even though ostensibly, the nerve is gone). My worst root canal was infected, but the endodontist claims that it usually doesn't cause that much pain (perhaps, but not for some people).
My mother and uncle have had the same issues. My father has never had issues.