All throughout my life, up until a few years ago, I had been going regularly to a dentist and getting cleanings. I had even went through a few adult teeth being pulled for the sake of making room in my tiny mouth for wisdom teeth and orthodontia work (braces and retainers). Everything was dandy and I wasn’t afraid of my visits until one of my wisdom teeth came in sideways and a cavity was created inside of the space between that tooth and the one in front of it, causing me an amount of pain in my mouth that I had never felt before. The dentist I had been seeing refused to pull the cavity infested wisdom tooth and I was stuck going to an oral surgeon.
The oral surgeon wasn’t mean or nasty and based on my previous experience with the dentist I wasn’t afraid to go. He did a good job cutting the tooth apart and pulling it from my mouth even though the roots of the tooth were dangerously close to a nerve. I had no problem until I got back from having the tooth pulled…and the fear began.
It took a while before I was able to get back in and see the oral surgeon who pulled my tooth for a check up on how the healing was going. I was dangerously low on the Vicodin that I had became dependent on to get through each day because of the amount of pain I was in. Yes, that was terrible for my previous indifference of the dentists, but what was worse had yet to come and I was oblivious to what I would be going through.
I had Dry Socket and didn’t even know, suffering with it for at least a week before seeing the surgeon again. His remedy? Forcing a seven-inch long piece of gauze covered in clove oil and antibiotic into the hole that he had not closed up with stitches (which is doesn’t have to be), burning the inside of the wound, the gum left around it, and the inside of my cheek.
Needless to say I was in constant pain and it burned for a while. He didn’t give me any more pain medicine because he didn’t think I needed it even though my eyes watered every time I went home from the little office where he crammed more and more gauze into the hole every week or so.
Since then I have not been to the dentist until this past Monday and I was unaware how badly that experience had left me scarred and afraid until going and being told I would need another wisdom tooth pulled. Even thinking about it made my stomach turn and my eyes water with fear and phantom pains of the burning sensation in my mouth from the clove and antibiotic mixture. It didn’t help that Senior Artist (my mother) wanted to get me in during this week, but I was lucky to have the date scheduled for the 5th of November.
Just today, three days from the anxiety attack in the dentist’s office, I encountered another anxiety attack while discussing Banana’s visit to the dentist and could not finish my dinner that I had barely started to eat when the conversation started.
Has a single experience that went wrong changed your outlook on something that you had been fine with before? Is a better experience all that is needed to return that okay feeling to the situation?
Artist In Chaos 