I Got An Emergency Root Canal Today And It Was Awesome

For the last 4 or 5 days my mouth has hurt. I say “mouth has hurt” versus “I’ve had a toothache” because I could not identify a single tooth. It wasn’t a tooth it was the general the left side of my mouth that hurt. It began subtly last Thursday. Woke up and my mouth hurt. I did what anybody would do – took a couple ibuprofens and drank for 3 days straight, coming home late nights and doing the old “eliminate a slice of pepperoni, then don’t worry about brushing just drink some water,” because obviously the plaque in your mouth is like the aliens in “War Of The Worlds” and dies by water.

According to the dentist this did not help. Monday morning I lied in bed having not slept. Apparently some fierce combination of hungoverness and toothacheness induces insomnia. Who knew.

I called my dad, who is a dentist, who told me I take pathetic care of my teeth. He said it was probably just some gum bacteria whatever that is so I bought like 9 different versions of mouth-bleach, dipped dental floss in it, and scrubbed my teeth to the bone. Blood everywhere. He told me to “saw between your teeth like a madman,” which I did. Sink was redder than Macbeth’s.

Tuesday I woke up, and the pain persisted. I survived on cycling ibuprofen every 2 hours, aleeve every 2 hours, ibuprofen every 2 hours, aleeve every 2 hours, all day.

This morning I woke up crying in the fetal position. Clawing at my mouth. Tooth 15 was in excruciating pain (upper back left). If I touched it, I whimpered.

I googled “emergency dentist nyc” and ended up at some operation called Dental365 but could easily be mistaken for The MET.

They ushered me to the 3d x ray machine. I don’t like this thing. They lock your face in and you’re never quite sure you’ll ever get it back.

(author not pictured)

When I called the dentist, I told them tooth 15 was the problem tooth. When I filled out the paper work, I told them tooth 15 was the problem tooth. When the hygienist asked, I told her tooth 15 was the problem tooth. When the dentist asked, I told him tooth 15 was the problem tooth.

Then the dentist took a hammer and literally hammered on each of my teeth asking if they hurt. They did not. Then he got to tooth 15. Hammering fucked up tooth 15 hurt. A lot. I yelped (not the app, the sound).

The dentist agreed tooth 15 was the problem tooth.

15’d been filled like a year ago but the bacteria was clever and resilient, navigating past 15’s defenses, and we had a ruthless war on our hands. We were losing this war. I’m going to Scotland tomorrow, so we need to win this war and win it fast. I needed an emergency root canal.

To my surprise I had to pick up and go to an actual root doctor separate from my Dental365 dentist. The root doctor too was obsessed with decoration.

They chaired me and we got to work.

Many people fear the root canal is an excruciating, torturous experience. It is not. In fact, the greatest moment of the past 3 days for me was the moment they numbed me up and began operation. When you’ve had a toothache for days, a root canal is the highlight of the week. There was a moment when I really soaked it all in: I couldn’t feel my face, there were 11 machines in my mouth, I was rocking shades, looking up at the sun (lightbulb), John Lennon’s “Imagine” was playing in the background, and I thought, “is this heaven?”

There was, however, one incident during the operation that made me nervous. About halfway through, an assistant entered the room through a closed door, walked up to the root doctor, and showed her a posted note with some handwriting on it. I couldn’t make out what it said, but I was nervous. What is it? What does he need to communicate to her that he can’t communicate to me? Do I have a tumor? Cancer? Sexually transmitted disease? God dammit who was it? Can you really tell that sorta thing from a root canal? Does it say “some person named ‘YP’ is here with a camera”?

I don’t know what it said. I guess we never will. Probably for the best.

After about 45 minutes, it was over. Piece of cake. Tooth fixed. 15 was back… 15 was fucking BUZZING!

In conclusion, getting an emergency root canal is awesome. It’s never a bad thing. If you actually NEED an emergency root canal, then getting it is fantastic. It’s relieving. You just might feel like you’re in heaven.