So today was the day I got my final root canal done. Apparently last Wednesday was just a preliminary clean-out, dealing with the emergency at the time and the overwhelming pain. I'd been somewhat concerned because a friend whose father is a dentist had told me that her dad normally takes x-rays at the end of a root canal to make sure he'd fully cleaned out the roots, and on Wednesday my dentist hadn't done that. This time...he really went to town, and just seemed to like doing x-rays every so often almost just to see how things were going. I think he took about 4-5 x-rays before the whole thing was done.
Apparently I had three roots, and he was worried about getting down far enough in the third, narrow one, and so kept checking on it. Then, when he was finally satisfied with how clean the tooth was (and I felt like he'd repeatedly washed out my mouth with chlorine, which had me choking and totally burned my throat), he kept putting little sticks of metal down into the base of the tooth, and then once he'd jammed a whole bunch into the roots, then heated them up (no joke, by heating a piece of metal with a cigarette lighter, the high-tech NHS!) I guess to turn them liquid and seal off the tooth. There was smoke coming out of my mouth, it was totally bizarre.
Then (and here's the interesting part), instead of putting a crown on, he'd preserved the exterior of the tooth, and he filled it with amalgam. He discussed this with me, and I know it was a somewhat controversial decision, as apparently it does mean my tooth is now at a slightly higher risk of cracking or fracturing. (Root canals are typically finished off with a crown, where most of the tooth is destroyed and just used as a post to hold the crown). Originally, he'd talked about rebuilding the tooth with whatever that white dental material is, but in the end decided that amalgam was the way to go. Bad in that he was simply filling my tooth rather than rebuilding it, but good in that he was going with the strongest material he had. Still, I like this guy and have come to trust him, and he told me, "Trust me, I wouldn't do this if I thought the risk of your tooth cracking was very high. In truth, I think you're going to have a very good outcome with this, and it preserves more of the natural tooth. But no more chewing on ice for you, okay?"
So no biting down hard on olive pits or anything like that, he basically just told me to exercise a decent amount of caution and to not be stupid. And to floss and brush my teeth and generally take care of it. Apparently he also tried to "avoid my bite" on it when he filled it (I do admit it looks a bit more concave than the tooth on the other side), so as to just put less pressure on it in general.
I suppose in the end if it does need a crown, I'm no worse off than I am now. But I do like the idea of trying to preserve more of the natural tooth. After all, I was stupid enough not to floss and let it decay this much. Yet apparently, despite the overwhelming pain that I was in, the decay wasn't that bad and he was still able to save a lot. I guess we'll see how it goes.
Although when he finished, he was so pleased with the final x-ray that he was actually showing it to other people (i.e. the other dentist just passing through in the hallway), as apparently it was pretty close to textbook perfect. Of course, I have no idea what root canal x-rays SHOULD look like, but it did look quite pretty. And I assume if he was so pleased with it, that it must have been quite a good job. He certainly did take a lot of time on it at least (in total I was in the chair for well over an hour), so I know he was definitely paying attention to detail!
Ugh, but I never want to have another one. Scheduled a regular check-up appointment for next Monday (as all this time we've just been dealing with the critical situation, now it's time to see how the other teeth are doing), and I'm going to rededicate myself to the joys of flossing!! Final verdict? You definitely don't want to have a root canal unnecessarily, but when you need one, you'll be glad you live in an era of modern dentistry. And I'm pretty happy with my dentist...I should go see him more often!!
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