Hi, everyone!
Wow, it has been almost a whole year since I made a life update type post. We stayed in our apartment mostly all last year and I didn’t have a lot of exciting activities to share. Now I’m wanting to get back into the habit of making blog posts that aren’t just of my succulents, which I’m super behind on those too, to add a little more variety and fun again. I’m also sharing this blog post to hold myself accountable and interact with the blogging community more. I’ve definitely missed it, and I feel like I’m somewhat exciting again!
It’s been a rough few months and I’ll try to recap a little bit up to the present. This one will be on my dreaded root canal experience.
Root Canal Therapy
My friends thought it was weird that it’s called root canal therapy, like I had to do exercises with my mouth or something. That was really funny, but I actually started to doubt myself that that’s one of the names they refer the procedure as! I guess it’s less common and they just drop the “therapy” part because I’ve only heard it called a root canal too.
Anyway, I never expected that I would have to get a root canal at 25 years old, but that happened, and it’s almost all behind me! *hopefully* It’s quite a process. I am going on a month and a half since the initial appointment.
I had a few cavities filled last October and one was pretty deep, which may been the reason why I needed a root canal therapy since the nerves were traumatized. At the time, I thought the tooth hurting meant it was still in its healing process, so I suffered through it and didn’t think much about it. It was crappy timing, especially considering I suffered through Thanksgiving and Christmas eating only on one side of my mouth! My family loves to eat around these holidays, so that was not pleasant for me. It has taken a few weeks for me to adjust and chew normally, and my bite feels off after not putting my teeth together for so long. I am still a bit cautious now, but chewing feels more normal again and I think my bite is too.
By January the tooth caused me to wake up at night in pain and I was staying up because of the pain. My dentist was able to see me the next day thankfully. She gave me antibiotics, speculated that my bite was off, and suggested that I may need a root canal. Well, I wanted to hope for the best and believed that it was my bite. Unfortunately, the tooth started to ache again in March[?]. My dentist was awesome and could see me again for an emergency visit and confirmed that I needed a root canal after taking some x-rays.
Long Story Short, Sort of
Originally I booked an appointment to have my old dentist in my hometown perform the RC on April 21st, but the pain worsened and it no longer felt bearable to wait another week. I called my dentist again on the 13th and a staff member was so kind and patient. She helped me book an appointment with an endodontist that they partner with, one that they recommended to me initially, and I ended up getting the first part of the procedure done on the 15th! I’m sure the dentist was sick of seeing me, but they’ve been wonderful and kind through the whole process.
Looking back, I wish I would have booked with the endo months ago, and my current dentist highly recommended for an endo to perform the procedure because the tooth’s roots were unique, plus I could have done this all months ago! Hindsight is 20/20, I suppose. I had my second appointment with the endo on May 3rd. The doctor had to put medicine in the tooth canal to clear up the infection that they cleaned out during the first appointment. What’s freaky is the infection in my roots resulted in me losing some bone mass. It grows back in time, thankfully, but I went to the dentist [for a regular cleaning appointment] just two weeks prior to the RC procedure and the x-rays didn’t show the bone mass loss.
I had an appointment on May 19th to have my temporary crown put on and I go back for a permanent one on June 8th. I’m so close to being done with this, and I’m praying super hard that I won’t have any tooth problems in the near future! *knock on wood*
6/15/21 Update: My last appointment went well. I have my permanent crown and it didn’t take but a few days to get used to it!
The Procedure Itself
I’m the type of person that reads and finds out what to expect before something is done. I watched and searched how a root canal is performed. I’m absolutely terrified of going to the dentist, [I had so many cavities growing up, poor genes I suppose], so I was even more worried and afraid to have the RC done.
Reddit was my best friend when it came to reading about other people’s root canal experience. I don’t know how I went all these years without using Reddit because now I search on it for any questions I have! A helpful comment stated something like, “You’re in more pain now than you will be after the root canal is done.” I couldn’t agree more. I had nights where I couldn’t fall asleep because my tooth hurt so much, and this was even when I used an ice pack to alleviate the pain!
I’m also terrified of needles, so that was a huge worry prior to having the procedure done. Plus, I was somewhat difficult to numb because for the cavities I had done last fall I felt the drill on that tooth, and this was after four different attempts to numb that area. I’m just a bit traumatized, but I’m here and I made it through. The endo assured me that since this is what they’re specialized to do, they have more advanced anesthesias than dentists. The first round of the anesthesia was the most painful, but after it kicked in I didn’t feel the next few rounds. Hallelujah!
The procedure went so much better than I expected — probably because I was mentally prepared for the absolute worst. I still kind of am, but I need to stop this kind of mindset. Both RC appointments took a little over an hour. I thought they both flew by and I was out before I knew it. Hopefully I won’t have to go through another RC, but if I do I won’t feel as anxious about it, knowing what I know now and that I feel mostly at ease with the doctors.
Anyway, that’s how the last few months have went for me! I can’t believe it’s already June. It’s my birth month and we’ll be going on a small vacation in a few weeks, so that’ll be something to look forward to!
How have you been? Have you ever had to have a root canal?
