Dental Drama

I've blogged about my dental woes since right before Oscar was born. If you really care, you can read about them here, here, and here.

Since the last post, I had the dental work done (2 filled in December, 1 in January), and was extremely displeased with the way things went down, but for some stupid reason, I kept returning to this dentist--some strange sense of loyalty? I don't know.

Two weeks ago (to the day, actually) I was eating cereal (this is a recurring issue, evidently) and something happened. I don't know if I heard it or felt it, but something changed in the tooth that was filled in January. I went to work and avoided chewing on that side all day. 48 hours later, I was able to get into the dentist to have him look at it.

Essentially, he told me it could be one thing or another, but without knowing for sure, he was ready to do a root canal right there and then. I balked. I asked for a referral to an endodontist, the same one who did my root canal on the dead, gray tooth last year some time (don't know if I blogged about that..). I think my dentist took it personally, because the first thing that came out of his mouth was "he costs more." Because discount dental work from the guy who tried drilling into my tooth TWICE before it was fully numb (didn't blog about that either, but that was the January filling on the tooth we're talking about)--yeah, that's exactly what I want. He left the room and I explained to the tech what my reservations were, and she agreed to get me an appointment with the root canal specialist. And then the dentist came in and "took the tooth out of occlusion" with a grinder. Really wish I had asked more questions about that. Kicking myself for not leaving this guy sooner.

Anyway, today I met with the endodontist, and he didn't see any reason to do a root canal right away--it may still be the other thing that my dentist mentioned.

Yeah, that's right. When the specialist in the area is not as easily convinced as the generalist, I have an issue with the generalist.

This, and the cumulative feelings of previous visits, has solidified my decision and resolve to switch dentists. And yet, I feel guilty because they people there are so nice. The dentist just happens to be mostly a jerk.

So, thus is life with me. Will be doing experiments over the next couple of weeks to see if I bruised a ligament around my tooth. I'm okay with that.

Cheers.