Relief

June 27, 2008 by cynthia 

My dentist’s office windows are slightly below street level and there’s a tallish brick wall between office and street. On a nice sunny day like today, all I can see of the people strolling down the sidewalk are their heads, rolling along the wall. Puts me in mind, in a nice way, of guillotines and overflowing baskets during the French revolution.

It’s a tad mesmerizing, a good thing, as I was there to have a painful back tooth extracted from the jaw that NEVER gets numb. Fortunately, I have a great dentist (with tiny fingers), who knows just how to jolly me along until the corner of my mouth droops and she can get to work.

So, tooth is gone, she showed it to me in all its cracked and gory glory, and assured me that removal was absolutely the correct decision. She’d given me a choice between spending $4,500 to visit a specialist and see if the tooth could be saved, or spending $220 to yank the sucker out. No brainer, that. Still, it’s nice to know that my frugal ways resulted in euthanasia, not murder.

I mentioned last night’s laugh fest and how the pain completely and mystifyingly disappeared when I laughed. She nodded. “Natural endorphins, best painkillers in the world. You can get them from laughing hard, or from sex. Personally, I recommend laughing. It lasts longer.”

Good to know.

 

Comments

2 Responses to “Relief”

  1. chaniarts on July 2nd, 2008 3:39 pm

    only $220 to remove, but $2000 for the implant or bridge replacement.

  2. cynthia on July 12th, 2008 11:24 pm

    This is the last molar in back, so apparently I’m lucky–you don’t normally do any kind of replacement on those. So the hole is permanent…

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