Dental Surgery
I'm 'fortunate' enough to work for a university which has its own school of dentistry. One of the staff benefits is the ability to sign up for a round of free dental treatment - if you don't mind it being performed by an undergraduate.

Most of my teeth were in OK shape but my Lower left six had serious occlusal caries distally AND mesially, and it needed a root canal.

I've had a root canal before, it wasn't exactly hugs and puppies, but it was tolerable and only took an hour or so. At least, that's in private practice.

Because the undergrads have to learn how to do things the hard way, they can't use any of the fancy tools modern dental practices have - so, to make sure they've found the end of each root canal, they essentially leave an endodontic file in the root of the tooth and send me for an x-ray.

This went on for about five one-hour sessions. Each time, I was numbed up, the temporary filling was drilled out, my undergrad would have another go at getting out all the living root with a tiny file, would inevitably fail, I'd scream, we'd run out of time and I'd be sent off with another temporary filling and a further appointment.

After five sessions or so, my undergrad had the good sense to realize he wasn't getting very far, and asked his tutor for help. They attempted the 'brute force' method to get rid of the last of the root (basically telling me to brace myself while they hacked away at it) but I *really* couldn't stand it and ended up a trembling crying mess in the chair.

At least I got some free lucozade.

It was at this point they discovered a there was probably ANOTHER canal which they hadn't spotted which was probably causing the problems. They suggested I could go on a waiting list to see a specialist who could probably solve it, but I could be waiting up to a year.

I politely informed them that I just wanted the gorram thing out of my skull as quickly as possible. They scheduled me for surgery two days later.

I'd already had a wisdom tooth extracted so I thought I knew what to expect. I was mistaken. My tooth was so angry at all the trauma it had endured that it did not want to go without a fight. It took almost four cartridges of anaesthetic to get me numb enough to even start trying to remove it. It was still sore but I figured I could live with it as it would be over soon.

After five minutes of tugging, twisting and tearing with forceps, the undergrad needed a rest. He got his tutor to have a go. They took it in turns - my tooth holding on so dearly to my jaw that you'd think it were a Titanic survivor - until I finally hear one of them (the student I think) saying that he thinks that it's starting to give.

And then - snap.

The crown of that tooth, which at this point had almost no internal structure left, snapped away from the roots. So I was left with this handy little mineral 'cup' below my gum line, just waiting to get full of food and bacteria.

They scheduled me for further surgery two days later...

THIS time, I had an entire operating room to myself - a far cry fronm the open plan cubicles that most of the work is done in. With the application of much anaesthetic, some cutting of my gums, some drilling away of superfluous jaw bone - they were able to slip the tiny metal shoe-horn-looking root extractors down the sides of each root and lever them out. A couple of stitches later and I was on my way.

It didn't end there - for some weird reason, after the gum had healed over, a couple of weeks later I noticed something sharp and hard cutting through the newly healed gum, almost like I was growing a new tooth underneath. I'd had enough of surgery at this point so one night, whilst at a nightclub of all places, I grabbed the 'growth' and just yanked it out. I've had no bother with the extraction site since.

Remember kids, brush your teeth!!!
(theSHALROTH Gaga's tits are on fucking fire!!!, Sat 13 Mar 2010, 14:10, Reply)