I’ve been to the dentist so many times these past few weeks, I’m like a regular at this point.
It started with inflamed gums which somehow ended with a root canal.
Before we got to the root canal, I also got a sleeping mouth guard made to protect my teeth from further wearing down due to my bruxism, which means I grind my teeth at night.
This was my first root canal, by the way. This procedure usually needs to be done if dental work like cavity filling irritates your tooth’s nerve so much, there is no choice but to kill it.
So that’s what happened. I had a very deep cavity in one of my pre-molars which needed to be filled, and the filling ended up being too close to the nerve.
I immediately felt the pain after the local anesthesia from the procedure had worn off, but I read that it could sometimes take a couple of weeks for the pain to go away, so like a typical penny-pinching Pinoy, I decided to wait it out.
But the pain didn’t go away, oh no. It got worse. It got so bad that one dawn I was awakened from slumber from the pain.
So I decided to schedule an appointment for the dental procedure but the dentist was so busy, they could only slot me in more than a week later. The receptionist also said that the dentist also didn’t want to do procedures so soon after a vaccination just in case the immune system overreacted or something.
So I had to take Advil for over a week and at one point I felt dizzy, I was afraid it was a symptom of over dosage. So I took a break from the medicine and held ice cubes up to my face to dull the pain. It surprisingly worked, but it wasn’t sustainable. I mean, how on earth was I supposed to do that while at work, for example?
So you can imagine just how relieved I was when I finally got back into that dentist chair and the root canal finally done.
After the anaesthesia wore off three or so hours later, the tooth pain was gone and in its place, another kind of pain… a financial kind. I knew root canals are expensive that is why I didn’t immediately get it done to begin with, but I had no idea just how much.
But I have no choice, I’d rather pay a steep price rather than live with that pain or become an addicted pill popper, which can’t be good for my liver long term, right?
Now can somebody please tell me if they know where I can get a cheap crown? 👑
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