Dentist - The Aftermath!

My appointment is over. Aside from some silver and my face looking suspiciously like I've suffered a stroke I am not much worse for wear. The appointment overall was not horrible. I must admit I was nervous and last night I did not sleep that well due to the anxiety. Interestingly enough I didn't really have bad dreams. Most of my dreams were about the dentist visit but they all centered around it already being over. The only part of the entire thing that hurt was the shots. I'm not a fan of needles in general much less in my mouth. I have overcome much of this fear or in the least managed to keep it from being as debilitating as it has been in the past. I will say this for my last dentist, I did not feel the shots. I felt these however. I believe its because they did not leave the topical anesthetic on long enough and some of the injection sites had no topical anesthetic at all. It was not the worst pain in the world although I did squeak several times. I think I was more afraid that it was a sign of how the rest of the procedure would go. After the first round numbing I really didn't feel that much else. After the other rounds of numbing I couldn't really feel my nose let alone my mouth. The dentist seems like a good person to me. He and his staff were very kind to me. I like this dentist for very particular reasons. I believe he is honest, has integrity, and after today most importantly patience. He told me what he was doing and why he was doing it the entire time he was working and oddly enough I found it calming. The most interesting part of the appointment was after he had drilled 3 of my upper teeth that were all together. Each of the teeth had been filled previously with resin and each within about 6 months of each other. After the resin was gone he gave me a mirror and showed me exactly what he had said initially. Each tooth showed varying signs of decay beneath the resin filling. The worst decay being behind the oldest filling (approx 2 years old). Each tooth was in a different stage of the same progression. Within 6 months or so I would have had to have a root canal in the worst tooth, 6 months after that 1 or both of the other teeth would have followed. I guess he has seen a lot of similar cases. After two or three root canals or lost teeth people start to look around for another opinion. Some dentists even view as a way to ensure repeat business. I started thinking the other day about when I got my original resin fillings. I don't think anyone offered me a choice of resin or amalgam. Even if they had, without being educated about the options the choice is similar to choosing one hand or the other when you don't know the contents of either. It took some real research on my part to get to the bottom of things and understand the choices available. I think we just assume and trust that our dentist knows whats best and will act accordingly. That's an assumption we ultimately have to bear the consequences for. In this day and age with information readily available we are more equipped than ever to start questioning some of the ideas we've always taken for granted.