Sure, our teeth are clean, but at what price?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I think I’ll start this rant off, with a song…

<i>“When I was younger, just a bad little kid/
My mama noticed funny things that I did
/Like shootin puppies with a b.b. gun/
I’d poison guppies, and when I was done/I’d find a pussycat and bash in his head/
When my mama said(What did she say)/
She said “My boy, I think someday/
You’ll find a way to make your natural tendencies pay”/
You’ll be a dentist.”"</i> -Little Shop of Horrors

 Truer words were never spoken. Today, I had my annual dental checkup. Now, I don't know about you dopers, but I'm not too big on orthodontia.
 First, I had to check in. At this time in the course of things, they let you sit in the waiting room, reading year-old magazines and dreading what comes next.

Then, the nurse came through the door, calling my name, as if calling me to the hangman’s noose.
Thus, my checkup had begun.
First off, I sat in the chair while she pleasantly shined a halogen light two inches away from my face, until I felt like I was being interrogated by Dick Tracy.
Then, deftly ripping open a packet, she pulled out the little steel hook. Terror spread through me, as I am not the biggest advocate of sharp objects in my mouth.
Smelling my fear, she decided it was time to sooth me. “Don’t worry, it’s just a cleaning device.” I began to politely inform her just where she could stick her “cleaning device,” when she decided for herself where to put it: into my gum, causing all of my nerve endings to scream collectively. With that, she began scraping plaque (and skin tissue) out of my mouth.
Suddenly, she stopped. “You know, I’m getting quite a bit of bleeding in here. You must not floss.”
Now, I know that I don’t floss regularly, but as she launched into a lecture about the joys of flossing, I couldn’t help but think that bleeding could also be caused by sharp, pointy things jabbed into one’s gums.
Next up on the agenda of pain was a triple whammy. First, she used the poliser as an electric sander, scraping whatever enamel remained off of my teeth. Second, she took a sprayer and launched a jet of water onto my exposed nerve endings, and she finished up by sticking a suction hose into my mouth, which had about enough pressure to pull a pig through a 1/2 inch wide pipe.
Then, she noticed something interesting about my mouth: the canker sore on my upper gum. “Wow, that’s a big one,” she said, poking it. “You know, they really don’t know what causes them. (poke) Unfortunately, we don’t really have anything to cure it, (poke), so the best thing for you to do is to just let it run its course, and not irritate it. (poke).”
Finally, I was finished. After a quick lecture about keeping my teeth cleaned, they let me loose into the world, feeling bitter and alone, if not in possesion of a nice set of teeth.
But revenge would be mine. As an act of protest, I quickly walked over to the 7-11 across the street, and purchased a Coca-Cola Classic, and a two-pack of donut sticks. Flouride treatment my ass, I was hungry.

2

You pansy. Strap a pair on and go get your wisdom teeth removed. Then tell us about psycho dentists. Mine gave me local anesthetic (no gas, no general) spent about 30 minutes with these cattle-horn shaped pliers yanking away, then does a franken-style job sewing the cavities together, and throws me a couple advil samples and says “you can take more than the package says.” No shit doc, but where’s my demerol, my vicadin, my REAL drugs? I take 8 advil on a fuckin sunday as it is just to recover from Sat night. Goddamn, must have a correspondence dentistry degree, b/c that was an unhappy experience.

3

Yeah, my sister just had her wisdom teeth out. I’m gonna have to soon, so I’ll be sharing your pain. As for the “strap on a pair” part, well, I was bored, and thought I’d attempt to entertain people. Stupid lack of writing skill…

4

I had heard horror stories for years about wisdom tooth extraction. Which is why I waited until the pain was comparable to Chinese Finger Nail torture before I actually had the procedure done.
I went in, got an IV put in, and went to la-la land. I woke up with a numb mouth full of cotton, and a bottle Tylenol/Codeine in my hand. My sister, bless her little soul, brought me to her house to sleep it off. I woke up the next morning, feeling great. A little discomfort in my jaw, but no real pain. The bottle of Tylenol/Codeine turned into party favors.
I’d have my wisdom teeth yanked twenty more times rather than sit through a tartar scraping. Now that’s dentistry at its sadistic worst.

5

Gee thanks for reminding what I love about dental exams, and why, even though we have no deductible for dental care, I only go in every two years at most.

Getting my wisdom teeth out, surprisingly, was NOT an awful experience. Mine were severely impacted (they were coming in with the top part of the tooth pointing towards the front of my mouth - 90 degrees rotated from normal) but hadn’t broken through, except for one, yet. I had general anesthesia and woke up with a mouthful of bloody gauze, but no pain.

Lots of supposedly dissolving stitches that did NOT fall out on their own, though, and then I got to get them cut out 2 weeks later. Yippee.

I am missing an upper molar now (in the back, you can’t see it) since I wussed out on a root canal. Laughing gas is pretty cool :slight_smile: .

–tygre

6

I had my wisdom teeth out almost a year ago. General anesthesia. Had some pain afterward, but it wasn’t totally unbearable. (One of the few times I actually felt an effect from pain killers.)

My biggest mistake? Going to see a production of “Into the Woods” (for the first time) just under a week later. There I am sitting in the audience alternating between laughing because of how funny the show is and groaning in pain over how much the fact that the laughing is hurting my still tender jaw.

7

Considering that I have my cleaning scheduled for this Friday, I’d like to smack you for that vivid rendering:

:::smack:::

Also, since this thread seems to have been permanently hijacked into the topic of wisdom teeth, I’ll share my horror story.

I was given IV Valium, plus local once I was conked out. My bottom teeth were so severly impacted (and the pain from breaking them in half so great) that I woke up screaming. Giving me gas, I fell asleep once more with the sight of the oral surgeon and his chisel. :eek:

My face swelled to about twice it’s normal size, I was on Percodan for three days, and they left a hunk of bone in there which worked it’s way out after a few weeks.

whadda nightmare.

8

Had my all four wisdom teeth out when I was in the 8th grade. All impacted-bad…they had to go in the gum and break them into tiny pieces to get them out (I was in agony and couldn’t eat solid food for 3 weeks) I must say the whole experience SUCKED! The bottom two never did heal quite right so every so often I’ll get a little infection back there.

As for regular dental visits, up til I turned 16, I never had a problem. My cleanings were always painless and never any bleeding…until SHE came along!!! SHE is the evil one who took my long-time cleaners place. SHE is the one who gave me a cleaning so painful I couldn’t eat for two days! She also gave me the “gee, you must not floss” crap too…no woman, it’s the fact you keep poking the hell out of my gum and “popping” the floss against my gums! After that ordeal I told her just how bad she was and she said she knew what she was doing…HA! I never went back. (I have been to other docs for cleanings though LOL)

9

Jester my friend, and all the rest of you, that’s nothing.

lean back and let inoci tell you of his dental woes…

it was the beginning of my sophomore year in high school, and i had had braces for roughly four years at this point. evidently my lower jaw was about .5cm from where it should be, and the braces didn’t end up working. ever. i had some wierd things in there to assist, but it was decided that an actualy SURGICAL PROCEDURE would be used to correct the problem.

so first things first, i have to have my wisdom teeth pulled. no problem, a fairly routine procedure. the orhtodontists had been in the biz for 20 odd years, so i felt fairly safe. that changed just hours after the procedure.

as per my request, i opted for a general knockout rather than a local, mostly because i did want to get bored. if only i knew. so i’m knocked out and three hours later i wake up. i’m in the ‘recovery area’, which looked a lot to me like a waiting room. anywho, it is then that i get the bad news.

my lower right wisdom tooth hadn’t come out right. matter of fact, it didn’t come out at all. it had somehow slipped INSIDE MY CHEEK and was stuck there. they couldn’t remove it because that would risk tear the cheek open and causing more damage, so it had to heal before they could go in. that would take a couple of weeks.

so here i am, a fairly geeky high school to begin with, and i have to walk around with a giant lump in one cheek while the whole thing heals. but i managed somehow, and i’ve since blocked most of those few weeks from my mind…

so i go back in to have the tooth removed from my cheek. this time they only give me a local since it should only take a few minutes. true to his word, the doc gets the job done, but i make hte mistake of actually watching the whole time. how he got all those tools in my mouth i’ll never know. and how do you sterilize a pair of pliers? and just to make me feel better, he tells me that this samething happened on some patient of his ten years ago. yeah doc, real funny. thanks for telling me earlier…

fast forward a year or so and we find me in a hospital, sans wisdom teeth, about to undergo a procedure where they will chop my lower jaw off, and with some tiny titanium screws, refasten it in its appropriate place. sounds fun, right? well, they were nice enough to knock me out real good, and i woke up only to find that i had flatlined a couple of time, but i was ok now.

recovery went ok, and my jaw was wired shut for a couple of weeks. my cheeks got big again, but at least they were symetrical this time. and i had a really big syringy and a rubber hose. the only way to eat was to blenderize food, put it in the syringe, and weave the hose into the space once occupied by my wisdom teeth. a squirt or two later and i’m swallowing liquid pizza.

but i’m ok now. i have a strong, and i think well justified, dislike for those in the dental profession now. they have their uses though.

so trust me, a teeth cleaning isn’t a big deal.

10

Genetic mutant here–I had to have EIGHT wisdom
teeth out. First upper left, lower left, then
I made them do all four on the right side at
once cause I wasn’t going through it again. I
totally lost four days of my life.

Since then, I’ve found a great dentist and go
every six months. Haven’t had any more trouble.

11

I cringed at the wisdom teeth stories in this thread. I had a pretty bad time when mine were taken out, not helped by the fact that that evening my parents served a “celebratory” dinner of…corn-on-the-cob!

But nothing, nothing, I went through compared with my wife’s horror treatment at the hands of France’s, perhaps the world’s, most inept dentist. (By way of introduction, this same dentist so badly misdiagnosed my mother-in-law’s abcessed tooth that she eventually had to have part of her jawbone removed, in England.) At some point in my wife’s teen years this quack looked at her dental X-rays and decided, against all common sense, that it was time for her wisdom teeth to be removed. On the appointed day my wife was given a small dose of local anaethestic and strapped into a chair–literally. For two hours the dentist laboured to remove my wife’s teeth, eventually succeeding in removing three. The fourth one was proving a little tricky, however…regular tools having failed, our man reached for the pliers. Bracing one foot on the floor, and the other on the chair, he clamped on the tooth and pulled. And pulled. And pulled. Ten minutes passed, sweat was pouring down his face. Still he would not give up. By this time my wife’s anaethestic was starting to wear off and she was in complete agony. The dental assistant couldn’t bear to watch anymore and fled. The dentist tried again…and after five minutes, success! Well, almost. Only half the tooth came out. (Eventually the half that remained in her mouth had to be removed at a hospital.) According to my wife, the intrepid dentist sighed, wiped his brow, and muttered, “That was difficult.” Yeah, but for who?

Needless to say, my wife’s family complained furiously to the authorities, simply to be met with “(Gallic shrug) Find another dentist, then.” Moral of the story: If you’re on holiday in France, and get a toothache, DON’T go to a French dentist!

12

Hint: NEVER rent “The Boys from Brazil”!

13

Ok, I don’t have a wisdom tooth horror story for y’all. Had all 4 out my sophomore year in college. They knocked me out-I woke up bawling from the anasthesia, but no problems at all. No swelling, nothing.

Now, let me start off by saying that I am the only one of 4 kids who actually takes care of their teeth. I brush, I floss DAILY. Mom and I have had the conversation about my being the reason she bought floss when we were little. I have had 3 root canals.

The first one was as much of a joke as my wisdom teeth. I had an abcess, and it felt so much better afterwards, that I can’t even say there was much pain at all. Ate raw carrots an hour later, and took no pain pills besides 1 regular tylenol.

Second one, eh, was ok. Not painful, but not as easy as the first one. Still, couldn’t complain, not really.

Third one…oh my god. He started with one shot- and he had done 5 fillings the week before, with no problems. I thought I was numb. Then he started drilling/grinding. I almost jumped out of the chair. I have never had dental pain that bad in my life before. It took 5 more shots before he could start going again, and I had tears running down my face the whole time. I hurt-sore, swollen, etc. for a week afterwards. Then the crown(the temporary one). He didn’t grind it down enough, so it was pressing up against my upper teeth. I apparently grind my teeth a little at night, and I woke up every night for another 2 days in blinding pain before I could get in for him to look at it. he ground it down a little, and it was a lot better, immediately. Finally the permanent crown came in, and I had it put on. I still have 7 teeth to get filled, and I am scared to go back to that dentist-it’s time for my 6 month cleaning(the root canal was in February)…and I have to find another dentist. Soon. Because I don’t think I can go see him again. On top of that, he kept reminding me that he could give me general if I needed it. I think he felt really bad about the root canal…but…he should. Who can handle a root canal after 1 shot of lidocaine???

ugh… anyway, sorry this went on so long…lol…It wouldn’t bug me if I wasn’t so careful about my teeth. sigh

14

Well, I neglected my teeth for years. I had two old fillings that had come out, and the teeth that had been holding them were dead or dying, just chipping away bit by bit. I knew it was only a matter of time before I got an abcess and would need serious work.

When does it decide to act up? Last May. Last May after I’d been through a very difficult labor, an emergency c-section, and then an emergency surgery to repair a bladder tear that happened during the c-section. So I was recovering from those things, plus a kidney infection, plus an inflammation of the cartilage in my ribs, plus sore nipples from breastfeeding and NO sleep with a new baby in the house. Then the tooth acted up. I ended up having to have that one, and its companion on the other side, ripped out of my jaw. Note also that because I was breastfeeding, I had to take it really easy on the narcotics, both for the teeth and the other things I’d had visited upon my person.

I have to say that although the timing stank, it wasn’t that bad, but then maybe that’s because everything is relative. I did wonder if I’d run over a black cat in April or something. Since then, I’ve been very good about taking care of my teeth. No longer a dental renegade.

15

I can attest to the ineptitude of French dentists and doctors. Without telling a long story, I can say that I would rather have my wisdom teeth removed by a tribal chieftan in New Guinea than by the best French dentist.

16

I am a freak, I actually enjoy going to the dentist.
I can’t, and don’t really want to explain it, but I like having someone grooming and primping me, I like the chair and the smells and the bright light shining in my eyes.

My family has a history of bad teeth, and with that legacy, I had to have a root canal last year. Three times I went to the dentist , he attempted to numb the area, it would not get numb. Finally he decided it was not going to get numb and I would have to have the root canal without anestisha, just pop a couple Percadan’s. Well, I popped about 4, maybe 5, and had it done, not nearly as bad as I was expecting.

17

[hijack]Gee - wasn’t someone in this thread the one that told me to “stop whining and being a victim” the other night in chat? Did you think I would forget a cruel, mean, and heartless crack like that?

Just wondering.[/hijack]

18

Well, if it was the night I was there, I’m confused, because I didn’t say that to you. I would never say that, especially given the topic.

But unless the usernames are different in chat, none of the other people on this thread were participating in chat that night. Did you mean me? If so, this is an misidentification I want to correct!

19

I know what was said, I copied and pasted it. It made me very sad.

However, it was wrong of me to post my frustration here on an unrelated topic. I apologize to the OP.

20

Darn it, I posted a harrowing tale of dental malfeasance that would have frozen your blood, but the stupid CGI hung and it apparently didn’t go through. Well, I’m too lazy to type it again. So say Aaaah, and SPIT!