On Dental Misadventures

Posted on October 10, 2002 in Dentition

Crazy Tracy and kd are both in severe pain from abcessed teeth. Though I have had everything done to my mouth that they are having done several times over, I am finding that I am a poor solace.

It’s hard to be going through this stuff. People don’t realize how different we all are, that each mouth gets wired in a different way. My dentist has told me of patients who shut their eyes and let him get on with the drill without novacaine. I’ve tried it and failed dismally. kd gets so frightened she needs gas. Tracy, like myself, got where she did by years of neglect occasioned by her mental illness. The variations between just the three of us go to prove that human beings are not turned out on an assembly line.

I have had about 18 root canals (yes, I lost count), deep cleaning (a nasty procedure where they slice open your gums and scrape off the plaque that has become packed up around the roots), six extractions (two of my canines grew in twice, one on top of the other), and 28 crowns. My endodontists report three marvels: that I have extra roots, that some of them fork, and that they are extra long. I’ve been there.

Recent collisions with other bloggers have led me to re-examine my wimpy attempts at compassion. I can understand why reciting my life history can be seen as daunting and dismissive. I’ve known in my own time folks who think it is a comfort to hear that “someone else had it worse.” (In my case, it is my sister-in-law who has beat me by two or three root canals. She doesn’t do it, but others who know us both have.) What’s hard to put across sometimes is that I recount these things not to diminish the pain because I cannot do that, but to encourage my friends to go ahead. Something is wrong in their mouth. It hurts. I offer my experience as a ray of hope.

As I wrote to kd:

Understand that I offer myself in the spirit of a
fellow sufferer, of someone who has been where you are at the moment.
I know it is no fun and I wish I could drain the pain from your jaw and
relieve you of the financial burden. Alas, I have no power to heal and
residual debts from my own dental misadventures that we’re still paying
off.

Even reading that and knowing the sincerity of it, I know that I must be a poor comfort. It may even sound patronizing to say that these two friends have seen that something is wrong and they’ve taken the brave step of making changes. But that’s the truth, simply told.