Unlucky Number 13

Or, it's a good thing I trusted my gut.

Yeah, tooth 13 (A premolar? I guess) had a tiny crack in it, just between the old (but not ancient - it was a resin one) filling and the tooth. Bad enough to require a crown prep BUT if I had let it go, either I could have bit down wrong and sheared the whole thing off (my dad lost one of his #13s because he broke it so badly they couldn't crown it) or bacteria could have got in there and caused an infection.

So yeah, crown preps kind of suck, but they don't suck as badly as some of the other options.

And I am grateful that I have a very good dentist with a good chairside manner - he tells me just enough of what he's doing so I won't be startled ("there's gonna be a lot of water now, and some vibration") but not so much it freaks me out. And he's confident and can work fairly quickly.

And this time, I didn't need a nerve block in the soft palate. I don't know if #13 never requires that, or, the dentist mentioned something about "I'm experimenting with a new protocol for numbing" and just the one shot (in the gum) was all I needed.

Once that was done, I was pretty much ok. I can tolerate the actual work because I know that it isn't that long. The impression part is kind of "the longest four minutes of your life" as the dentist said but that's not so bad.

Also, I am grateful I pay for the "high dollar" dental coverage - once again it saved my bacon; I paid about $300 for a procedure that would cost $1000 without insurance.

I made it through the whole thing telling myself two things:

1. Tonight, this will be all over. You can go home and go to bed and not think about it and you can sleep. (I did not sleep well last night, I do "what ifs" too well)

2. You can obtain for yourself some kind of small "fluster" if you find something you want. (There is a Moomin-themed one of those Christmas candleholders - the traditional Scandinavian kind that have like a propellor that makes things revolve in the hot gases from the candle - that I have been eyeing.)