I just learnt a sore tooth of mine is caused by my tooth root never fully closing (due to getting braces and shifting my teeth around). Now at 30 I need a root canal.
I’ve never even had a cavity before. I’m legit terrified. Teeth are the one thing that are much worse than nails on chalkboard for me.
How was your experience been? Any words of advice or words of encouragement? I could use it :(
I had a dental abscess that ultimately required a root canal to fix. Before I could go into surgery I was in the worst pain of my life. Some people exaggerate when they say they were in the worst pain of their life, so to be clear I’m rating the abscess as causing more pain than when I was hit by a car, fell off a cliff, or had life threatening appendicitis.
I had never had a root canal before, so I was pretty nervous going in. My dentist is pretty cool though, he talked me through the procedure and was very patient with me.
The surgery came in two parts. He did most of the work the first day, and had to do some finishing touches the next. Honestly, the hardest part was just sitting in the chair with my mouth open for an hour. I do remember a period where there was a lot of pressure - not pain, but pressure. That’s when they’re filling in your roots with… whatever it is dentists use.
Part of the procedure involves removing nerve tissue. That made me anxious to hear, because I imagined that was going to hurt, but I didn’t feel a thing. Well, that’s not exactly true, about halfway through the surgery I suddenly had immense relief and couldn’t feel my abscess anymore.
Root canals kind of have a bad reputation because they’re one of the more involved procedures at the dentist. I had heard horror stories and seen it lampooned on sitcoms, but the truth didn’t live up to my fears. Dare I say it, it was almost a pleasant experience.
Good luck with your procedure, you’ve got this!
Gosh that abscess sounds absolutely horrible! I’m sorry you had to experience that but interesting that the removal of the nerve was felt that way.
The removal of the root and therefore no more feeling in the tooth is the part that scares me the most about it all.
Apparently the stuff they fill the root in with is a biocompatible composite mush thing (according to the dentist today).
I appreciate all the detail and well wishes :) Makes my day a little better because I’ve been an anxious wreck haha
Well, if losing feeling in your tooth is the part that has you most anxious, then I’m pleased to report that also seems like no big deal. I had my root canal about five years ago and I often forget that it was done, my mouth feels pretty much the same.
I was a little nervous that it might be pins and needles or numbness in my mouth 24/7, but the truth is that you just… don’t feel it. Either the other nerves in my mouth are picking up the slack, or teeth just don’t have a whole lot of feeling on their own.
Wooo! 🥳 forgetting that it was even done is the best case scenario in my head. The human body is WACK.
It’s usually gutta percha, a kind of rubbery material.