oday marks my 5th visit to the dentist in the last two months to correct problems that have been left unattended for a few years. One bad tooth, and a bunch of tiny fillings later, things were looking up. Unfortunately, the bad tooth, located all the way in the back, needed massive amounts of work from two specialists beyond my own dentist. The number of visits and cost were ridiculous, and I decided to have the thing yanked instead. Extractions go fast and are relatively painless compared to root canals. It's also cheaper and over in one visit. The downside of course is that you lose a tooth for ever and ever. Nonetheless, I weighed the options and just about everything is better than a root canal. I walked out of getting my tooth pulled feeling like I had just dodged a very painful bullet.

After the extraction, the tooth immediately in front of the recently removed molar started aching a bit. Hard to tell if that was because of all the pushing and prodding from the neighboring extraction, or Something Else. It got a lot more painful, and voila! It has a completely damaged nerve that requires a root canal. Awesome! So over three visits now I've sat in the fancy dental chair getting the same spot in the back of my jaw stuck with needles and pumped with pain meds while the "canals" gets drilled, poked, and cleared of the old root. Today they filled in the now-empty canals and put a temporary crown in place. In three weeks I get the permanent crown.

I've gotten root canals twice before this; It's never pleasant, but I don't seem to have near the dread and sickened memories that this current one is filled with. The sound and acrid, burning odor of teeth under a high-speed drill is quickly starting to turn my stomach. A half-numb tongue that hides in the back corner of my mouth, doubled over on itself in the hope of sealing off all taste buds and avoiding the touch of a rough, ground down tooth. The pressure, pushing and digging, spinning and grinding, as the dentist "clears out" the nerve with tiny files shoved into deep recesses. It's an unnerving situation in more ways than one.

The payoff of a pain-free mouth is what sends one to the dentist. No one goes there because it's at all fun. It's expensive, awkward, and no one looks good with drool hanging off their numb lips. Right now though, as the numbness wears off and the deep, dull, almost itchy ache starts to well up from that much-abused molar, I just want to go home and go to sleep. Anything to get my brain to send those pain signals to voice mail instead of actually feeling that steady throb.