Hello!

I’m terrified of the dentist. Absolutely, ridiculously terrified. It’s a completely unfounded fear and one I’ve never actually been able to get rid of.

A couple weeks ago, an old filling fell out. I didn’t have a dentist at the time and finding one in my area that was accepting patients given the Covid situation was difficult, so it took a little time to get an appointment. In that time, the tooth started hurting pretty steadily. The pain itself generally comes and goes.

I finally had my appointment today and the dentist offered two options: a root canal or extraction. He recommended the root canal, so I agreed. He assured me that with modern numbing agents, it wouldn’t hurt at all beyond some pressure.

They put a topical on my gums, then injected the numbing agent and gave me about 15 minutes, then started in. It was alright for… maybe five seconds. The pain that followed was blindingly severe. The dentist stopped immediately and injected more, and gave me a little longer, then tried again. Once more, the pain was horrible and immediate. He tried one last injection and then set to drilling again, and no dice. Even worse than the first two times.

My mouth itself was numb. Gums, cheek, I guess the outside of the tooth? But every time he started drilling, the agony was unreal.

He apologized profusely and prescribed a seven day regimen of amoxacillen and tylenol, then sent me home. I have to go back next Wednesday after I finish my antibiotics.

He said that it was painful because the infection makes numbing the area almost impossible, and the antibiotics need to kill off as much of the infection as possible before they can numb it further.

I’m scared though. 🙁 I already hate going and it hurt so badly. Will the antibiotics actually make it not hurt next time?