So there I am, tilted back in the dentist’s chair this morning, as they install a permanent crown. As they’re rinsing the cement off the new crown, the cold water hits the tooth directly below it. I casually mention that the tooth has been a little sensitive as they pry me off the ceiling. :smack:
The only root canal I’ve ever had happened when I was 10. Let’s just say that free dental services provided by a teaching hospital in the 1970s is not the best yardstick to measure by. All I remember is pain and biting some guy in a white coat.
So now I have three weeks to find out everything there is to know about root canals. Yes I want to hear the bad stuff. If I hear the bad stuff first, then it won’t happen to me.
No really bad stuff from my (single) experience. They juiced me up pretty good and I never felt a thing during the procedure. They did, however, use so much novocaine that the left side of my face was noticeably “droopy” for the rest of the day.
My root canal took twice as long as it should have, because the root of my one tooth is all twisty and turny and disgusting. (It was injured when I was a wee thing, and never grew in right.) So my primary complaint was a sore jaw, from having it propped open for so long. Other than that, it wasn’t really so bad. The specialist did mention that I might sometime - anytime from a few days later to years later - experience a phoenix abcess by that tooth that could be treated with antibiotics. Whatever.
Two years later, I had forgotten all about my root canal, when the left front of my face began to throb with most excruciating painfulness. Holding my face like a sad little monkey, I managed to dial my dentist. She called in an antibiotic and some serious painkillers. I spent the rest of the day most exceedingly high (wheeeeee …). The antibiotics kicked in the next day, and I was fine. My dentist watches that tooth like a hawk now, and it seems to be dormant.
In retrospect, the root canal was nothing. Try to avoid the phoenix abcess if at all possible. Yow.
Had two recently, and there was not much to them. They shot me up well, put a rubber dam in place, and did the drill, file, and x-ray process. The second one I went to some trouble to get – my normal dentist was way overbooked and scheduled me for a root canal in a month, but that tooth was in some severe pain, so I called up my old dentist and begged to be fit in whenever they could and they were able to fit me in the next day.
The only snag during the procedure was on the second one my tooth was refusing to become numb, so the dentist had to use some sort of short-needled high-pressure syringe that he claimed injected directly into the bone and hurt like a motherfucker. After that, though, the tooth was numb. There was no pain during either procedure, and afterwards the only pain was an achyness on that side of the face from the anesthetic injections, similar to after having been punched in the jaw.
I had a root canal about 15 years ago that went awry. The dentist blamed my supposedly extra-long roots for the 4 days he spent attempting to kill me by extreme pain. I repeatedly grabbed his arm during those 4 days (I couldn’t help it!) and both of us were exhausted by the whole process. After the 4 days of work on it, it became infected. Such pain I had never experienced before or since. If my painkillers wore off in the middle of the night, I’d shoot straight up in bed screaming. I was put on Prednisone, even.
Then the dentist sent me to an endodontist, a dentist that specializes in root canals, and after one completely painless visit, the work was done. Of course, I was charged for full root canals by both doctors.
I’d never have a root canal done by other than an endodontist in the future.
I had one done a few years ago by my regular dentist just because I mentioned some tooth sensitivity. It was pretty uneventful and the worst pain was in the beginning before they got the numbing just right. The pain ranked about a 4 and the whole thing wasn’t much different than getting a filling. Recovery was fine. Not much to write about really.
I had a root canal five or six years ago, and it was a piece of cake. It was absolutely nothing in comparison to the tremendous pain I was feeling from the abcess and infection that lead to the root canal. I was away from home at the time and had to see an emergency dentist, who didn’t do root canals, so since I was in constant pain and couldn’t eat, sleep or even stop crying for long, he drilled a sizeable hole in my tooth to drain out the gunk over the next few days and made me promise to see a proper dentist as soon as I returned home. About a week later I went in and they gave me a little Novacaine and the only thing I remember feeling was my gums get incredibly hot when they melt that waxy stuff to fill in the drilled-out tooth. Haven’t had a problem since.
I agree with Alice the Goon - go to an endodontist if you possibly can, since they specialize in this kind of thing.
I had a root canal in January and it was the Best Thing Ever, simply because at that point I was about ready to rip my infected tooth out myself. No pain during, very little after - Advil took care of it. Mine was two visits - the first was the actual root canal, where they hollow out the tooth and then pack it with some medicine-y stuff (I assume to kill the tooth and any infection), and the second was the build up, where they fill the tooth in and put on a temporary crown.
If you know it’s going to be a while between the temporary and permanent crowns, let the endodontist know because there are several varieties of temporary, and some last longer than others.
I had one a couple of years ago. It was generally OK, except for the fact that they had a hard time killing the infection that made it necessary. I had a cracked filling that they replaced, but it became abcessed. It was sore for months until they realized it and put me on antibiotics. The first two courses of antibiotics didn’t really clear it up – they did the temporary filling and noticed the problem when they tried to make it permanent. Stronger antibiotics finally killed it (and messed up my digestion).
After that, it was generally OK. I get occasional pains, but they’re fading away now.
The actual root canal wan’t a big deal. I didn’t feel anything.
BTW, my grandfather was a pioneer in root canal. He was doing them back in the 40s, when antibiotics weren’t commonly available.
It was horrible. My dentist started it late last September. Most of my roots have a pretty sharp bend so he had a very hard time cleaning it out. The Novocaine didn’t do shit. He kept injecting more and more and I was still in pain. Finally he started squirting a bit on the nerve, cleaning out a bit, squirting a bit more, cleaning a bit more. It took 5 trips to clean out the whole nerve and it kept getting infected. I kept having severe reactions to the antibiotics and the painkillers didn’t work. The root canal is done now but the tooth still hurts quite badly. I can’t chew with the right side of my mouth, which is difficult because of the cavities on the left side of my mouth. I’ve spent almost a year eating mostly soft, bland food. I want to have him just yank the tooth and put me out of my misery, but I’m terrified of going back. I never had any kind of fear of dentists or dental work. I once had 3 large cavities filled, in one sitting, with no Novocaine. Now, I wont even go get my other 10 small cavitites filled because I’m terrified.
And my tooth still hurts.
Did I mention the seemingly endless stream of yeast infections I got from the antibiotics? Yet another reason why I don’t want to go back.
My best friend actually had a root canal yesterday, and apparently it wasn’t so bad. She said the anesthetic wore off a bit during the procedure, but after another shot of it she didn’t feel a thing the whole time. There was very little swelling, and she was talking and eating normally by later that night.
Alice the Goon, your story made me squirm in my chair - I’m not sure if my jaws will ever unclench again. What an awful experience! When I was a kid I had a horrible, hamfisted dentist for awhile, and it’s a truly unique and terrible thing to have to suffer through “tooth stuff” (which always skeeves me the hell out anyway) when it’s at the hands of someone you don’t really trust. Ugh.
I’ve had about 10 root canals, and they suck. For me a lot of it is dental anxiety (acquired several years ago after some really heinous dental experiences) and a lot of it is that my jaw hurts like hell from my mouth being open that long… but the procedure itself isn’t so much painful as creepy. All that filing and scraping is like nails on a chalkboard. My mouth always hurts bad for a week afterward and I have an extreme tolerance* for the medication they give (dunno why, guess my liver is just that awesome) which sucks.
[I remember once when I went to a sedation dentist… I told him ahead of time that I have a high resistance to medication and he kind of scoffed. Then he tried to sedate me. It took an hour. At one point he said “how are you still awake and talking??” after he’d already given me double the normal dose.]
The last one I had was taking longer than normal and I was feeling a bit nauseous. I barfed all over the dentist’s shoes. He took a break to clean himself up while a couple of dental assistants cleaned up the mess. Other than that, it was a piece of cake.
I’ve had two root canals in the past year. One went off without a hitch. The other was slightly complicated by a twisty root that my dentist couldn’t get into. He stopped, capped it, and sent me to an endontist who specialized in tougher cases. He had no problem opening it up, cleaning out the canal, and sending me on my merry way.
The only pain for me afterwards was from the injection sites and my neck from those stupid chairs. Vicodin took care of the owies.
I too am denta-phobic, or was. Don’t work it up in your mind to be bigger than it really is.
I had an awful fear of dental work stemming from having had both awful teeth and an awful dentist when I was a child (my first visit involved nine cavities and no novocaine). Since switching to my current dentist (whom I downright love) when I was 18, I’ve slowly gotten better, but no one will ever make me like having teeth drilled.
That said, I love my root canals, all four of them. They are quite possibly, after my husband and children, my most favorite things in life. Before the root canals, I had teeth that frequently caused me terrible pain and equally terrible credit card bills almost yearly. Since the root canals, I have teeth that are completely numb and have finally been paid for. I have an almost religious awe for root canals.
At least for me. But I have really sensitive teeth/gums.