Pulling Teeth
I went to the dentist yesterday for a cleaning. It was a good cleaning, better than I had had in a few years.
I mentioned that I had an odd bit of tooth sticking out of my gums where my wisdom tooth was extracted 10 years ago. The dentist grabbed something pokey and started playing around until my grunts of pain were enough to cause him to cease and desist. He said, "You have two options. I can pull it out right here and now or we can schedule you to come back later with painkillers and such." I said, "Schedule me for later." He said, "No problem. This isn't a contest of manhood." Hmm. Was I just insulted? In any case I don't like people poking and cutting me if I can do it myself so I asked, "Can I try to remove it at home?" He hesitated and said, "Sure. Just take some tweezers and grab onto it."
How hard could that be?
So this morning I grabbed a mirror and some tweezers. The tooth fragment had a convenient "hook" on it so I was able to get a good grip. I would pull until it hurt and then give myself a break and then try again. After 10 minutes I noticed that the sliver had moved quite a bit and was larger than I expected. No problem. It wasn't too painful and the progress was encouraging.
Half an hour later I had more progress but the tooth fragment seemed to be significantly larger than the sliver that I initially imagined. Plus there was some bleeding and tons and tons of saliva (sidenote: yesterday the hygenist was amazed at my saliva output. She said I salivated like a 7-year-old, whatever that means).
So I persisted for another half hour or so. I attacked from a different angle, I pushed and pulled. I bled a lot and swallowed it all. I allowed most of the saliva to puddle on the floor. Finally I started digging at it with my fingernail. That worked well and I was able to eventually get it out. It was huge! It was the size of what I think of as a tooth -- the white part you see sticking out of the gums. Here I thought I had a 1mm x 1mm x 3 mm sliver and I actually had a 10mm x 10mm x 5mm boulder. And it looked gross.
So I swished with some hydrogen peroxide and took a shower (since I was covered in drool). I'm saving the tooth to gross people out with. My mouth isn't sore except my lips where I was holding it back to get a good look into my mouth. I think I'm oozing a little blood but I'm sure it will stop. I'm very glad I didn't have the dentist do it.
Oh, and I've always wondered why hydrogen peroxide works so I looked it up. It turns out that it is H2O2 and it very slowly turns into water (H2O) and oxygen (O2). However there is a chemical found in blood and cells that accelerates the process extremely rapdily. It isn't antiseptic at all but it is good at cleaning out wounds because of the bubbles. And talk about safe! Water and oxygen! Those are the two things I would miss most if I had to do without. Oh, and you can make a rocket engine by using hydrogen peroxide and silver. Apparently silver is also a catalyst although they said you need a 90% solution as opposed to the 3% found in drug stores.
I mentioned that I had an odd bit of tooth sticking out of my gums where my wisdom tooth was extracted 10 years ago. The dentist grabbed something pokey and started playing around until my grunts of pain were enough to cause him to cease and desist. He said, "You have two options. I can pull it out right here and now or we can schedule you to come back later with painkillers and such." I said, "Schedule me for later." He said, "No problem. This isn't a contest of manhood." Hmm. Was I just insulted? In any case I don't like people poking and cutting me if I can do it myself so I asked, "Can I try to remove it at home?" He hesitated and said, "Sure. Just take some tweezers and grab onto it."
How hard could that be?
So this morning I grabbed a mirror and some tweezers. The tooth fragment had a convenient "hook" on it so I was able to get a good grip. I would pull until it hurt and then give myself a break and then try again. After 10 minutes I noticed that the sliver had moved quite a bit and was larger than I expected. No problem. It wasn't too painful and the progress was encouraging.
Half an hour later I had more progress but the tooth fragment seemed to be significantly larger than the sliver that I initially imagined. Plus there was some bleeding and tons and tons of saliva (sidenote: yesterday the hygenist was amazed at my saliva output. She said I salivated like a 7-year-old, whatever that means).
So I persisted for another half hour or so. I attacked from a different angle, I pushed and pulled. I bled a lot and swallowed it all. I allowed most of the saliva to puddle on the floor. Finally I started digging at it with my fingernail. That worked well and I was able to eventually get it out. It was huge! It was the size of what I think of as a tooth -- the white part you see sticking out of the gums. Here I thought I had a 1mm x 1mm x 3 mm sliver and I actually had a 10mm x 10mm x 5mm boulder. And it looked gross.
So I swished with some hydrogen peroxide and took a shower (since I was covered in drool). I'm saving the tooth to gross people out with. My mouth isn't sore except my lips where I was holding it back to get a good look into my mouth. I think I'm oozing a little blood but I'm sure it will stop. I'm very glad I didn't have the dentist do it.
Oh, and I've always wondered why hydrogen peroxide works so I looked it up. It turns out that it is H2O2 and it very slowly turns into water (H2O) and oxygen (O2). However there is a chemical found in blood and cells that accelerates the process extremely rapdily. It isn't antiseptic at all but it is good at cleaning out wounds because of the bubbles. And talk about safe! Water and oxygen! Those are the two things I would miss most if I had to do without. Oh, and you can make a rocket engine by using hydrogen peroxide and silver. Apparently silver is also a catalyst although they said you need a 90% solution as opposed to the 3% found in drug stores.