Lisa needs braces DENTAL PLAN
I haven't seen a dentist in years, because I am scared shitless of going to the dentist. Like, just thinking about it makes my hands start sweating and my blood pressure shoot up. Part of it is inherited, because my mother is scared of the dentist, after a childhood trauma involving a drunk dentist who badly fucked up an extraction. My mother did not seem like a fearful person to me when I was a child, so seeing how scared she was made me scared.
Part of it is because I had fucking years of orthodontics, which included a palate expander that mechanically widened the roof of my mouth millimeter by millimeter over several months. And I had the braces long past the point of my teeth getting straightened, because they kept wanting my overbite to go away. I kept telling them I didn't care if I had an overbite, most people do, it's not freakishly exaggerated, and I'm not planning on being a model. I guess it finally sunk in, or maybe they just got tired of me, but by the time they came off I'd been going through monthly torture for my entire middle school and high school years and I'd had two lifetimes' worth of people sticking sharp instruments into my teeth and gums.
All of which is to say I've been ignoring my teeth for years, and I can't do that any more. I cracked a lower molar and it got infected and the pain was worse than my fear, so I sucked it up yesterday and called a dental office that was close to work and had mostly good reviews (and also accepted my insurance and was taking new patients). They'd had a cancellation and could see me in the afternoon. The dentist took one look and was like "Yeah, that's gotta go". There wasn't enough tooth left to cap or fill.
If I wanted the gas I'd have to schedule for next week, or they could do it right then with just novocaine. I didn't want to spend the next several days in pain and dreading the extraction, so even though I was literally shaking I was like, just give me a stress ball to squeeze and get it over with.
I gotta say, it really didn't hurt. Whoever invented novocaine should be beatified. Getting injections in your gums is no picnic, and there was a lot of pressure and it felt weird and awful, and hearing your own tooth crack as it's yanked out of your skull is a special kind of auditory hell. But there wasn't any actual pain. It hurt once the novocaine wore off, but a lot less than the infected tooth did. I wheedled one of Mom's hydrocodones out of her, and spent the evening vegging out in front of the first season of Homicide: Life on the Street, which is streaming for the first time, on Peacock. The only thing that really hurts today is the hinges of my jaw, from being forced wide open for a sustained time. I can handle that with Advil.
So like most things you dread on a cell-deep level, the reality wasn't as terrible as my fears. I'm going back in 5 weeks so they can check the extraction is healing properly, then they're going to go over every tooth and we'll plan out what needs to be done and which is the most urgent. I know I have some cavities, and some teeth that need to be capped, and eventually I'll want to get an implant to replace the missing tooth. I'm also going to get the oral cancer screening.
So I have that to look forward to. But I'm almost 50, and losing a tooth made me realize I gotta take better care of them or I'll be toothless as a hillbilly meth addict by the time I'm 60.
Part of it is because I had fucking years of orthodontics, which included a palate expander that mechanically widened the roof of my mouth millimeter by millimeter over several months. And I had the braces long past the point of my teeth getting straightened, because they kept wanting my overbite to go away. I kept telling them I didn't care if I had an overbite, most people do, it's not freakishly exaggerated, and I'm not planning on being a model. I guess it finally sunk in, or maybe they just got tired of me, but by the time they came off I'd been going through monthly torture for my entire middle school and high school years and I'd had two lifetimes' worth of people sticking sharp instruments into my teeth and gums.
All of which is to say I've been ignoring my teeth for years, and I can't do that any more. I cracked a lower molar and it got infected and the pain was worse than my fear, so I sucked it up yesterday and called a dental office that was close to work and had mostly good reviews (and also accepted my insurance and was taking new patients). They'd had a cancellation and could see me in the afternoon. The dentist took one look and was like "Yeah, that's gotta go". There wasn't enough tooth left to cap or fill.
If I wanted the gas I'd have to schedule for next week, or they could do it right then with just novocaine. I didn't want to spend the next several days in pain and dreading the extraction, so even though I was literally shaking I was like, just give me a stress ball to squeeze and get it over with.
I gotta say, it really didn't hurt. Whoever invented novocaine should be beatified. Getting injections in your gums is no picnic, and there was a lot of pressure and it felt weird and awful, and hearing your own tooth crack as it's yanked out of your skull is a special kind of auditory hell. But there wasn't any actual pain. It hurt once the novocaine wore off, but a lot less than the infected tooth did. I wheedled one of Mom's hydrocodones out of her, and spent the evening vegging out in front of the first season of Homicide: Life on the Street, which is streaming for the first time, on Peacock. The only thing that really hurts today is the hinges of my jaw, from being forced wide open for a sustained time. I can handle that with Advil.
So like most things you dread on a cell-deep level, the reality wasn't as terrible as my fears. I'm going back in 5 weeks so they can check the extraction is healing properly, then they're going to go over every tooth and we'll plan out what needs to be done and which is the most urgent. I know I have some cavities, and some teeth that need to be capped, and eventually I'll want to get an implant to replace the missing tooth. I'm also going to get the oral cancer screening.
So I have that to look forward to. But I'm almost 50, and losing a tooth made me realize I gotta take better care of them or I'll be toothless as a hillbilly meth addict by the time I'm 60.