The Root, the Root, the Root Is on Fire: Root Canals

Gear's story reminds me to say that the insurance point Matos makes above can't be emphasized enough.

The procedure itself isnt so heinous. Its kinda fascinating actually. the worst part about it is the crown. its like this foreign invader in your face and you cant stop messing with it with your tongue. you get used to it tho.. and yeah, there is some discoloration along the gums and stuff.

http://www.bbakira.co.uk/stills/tetsuo/tet16.jpg

"Where's that fucker Matos? He owes me cash money, and now he's out cold."

http://www.bbakira.co.uk/stills/tetsuo/tet17.jpg

"O fuck I forgot the bear. Another time, WK!"

(This has nothing to do with Akira, sadly.)

I've never had a root canal, but i do have a crown on my front tooth (accident at gymnastics when I was 10) and they had a tooth artist work on the tooth to get the tooth tone exactly right. I also have a gold crown on one of my molars, but wouldn't it be great to have one that is bright green? Or with a picture of a kitten?

EEEEEK!!!!!!! Now I remember why I was hesitant to click on this thread.

Teeth suck, 'tis true.

Y: is there any kind of loan you can get? or a payment plan you can make to stagger the costs to you? my own experience was that I paid for more of it myself than I'd been led to believe, grrrr.

how long were you out of commission for yours, michaelangelo? were you back to normal with some soreness the next day or what?

Do you believe your dentist when he says you need a root canal? My dentist's reasoning seems very....inductive. I've cancelled 3 appointments now and the moment of reckoning has finally come--my appointment is in 4 hours and I may never have dental insurance again.

PARTISANS PLEASE SHARE YOUR OPINIONS POST HASTE!

btw, if anyone is in the new york area and needs a root canal, go to a specialist named Dr. Ganik. i went to him and had a decent experience--he's a pleasant person with top of the line equipment and cause me very little pain. i think i paid a little over $400 after insurance, which isn't bad for a specialist.

Two weeks ago I went to the dentist to have two cavities filled. He filled one, then suggested that instead of filling the other one, he put a crown on, because the tooth was very weak. Since my mouth was full of cotton, I agreed. I didn't really understand all of the implications: that he would drill a ton of the tooth away, that it would hurt like crap, that crowns are expensive and have a tendecny to fall out of your mouth. He killed my mouth, put on the temporary crown, and told me to come back in two weeks. Past two weeks I have a dull pain around that tooth, sometimes shooting pain and aches. If I take Advil it goes away, but then it comes back again. It's super annoying because I had no pain before--though I'm not surprised if the tooth was infected, cause they did a large scaling to clean out my gums. He said there was so much plaque in there he couldn't see until he cleared it out how much of a cavity I had. Something about how fluoride is great but it hides how much damage us young people get into(?) I go back today to get the real crown, and he tells me, guess what, judging from your symptoms, you probably need a root canal, because the crown is right above your nerve. How did I go from having a cavity, to a crown, to a root canal? Do I have any recourse? I wish I could reverse time and get back my orginal infected tooth, that at least didn't hurt at all. I wish I had just gone with the filling the cavity as planned orginally. He told me to call him in a few days and we could proceed. Any chance the pain will magically disappear and I can avoid RC?

I had a root canal; last year and it was surprisingly painless. My dentist used these fancy and relatively new flexible nickel steel drill bits and a tonne of anaesthetic. I was expecting all the horrors you described but aside from the unpleasant sensation of someone drilling up through my head it was OK. It was, I later found out, a bloody expensive dentist. There was a dull throb for a few days after but is subsided. No sure if you can avoid the RC but bad for the dentist ambushing you half way through a treatment and not discussing the (presumably) expensive implications.

Just found out I have to have a root canal done. My tooth really hurts and I'm not registered with a dentist yet down here - any idea how long I'll have to wait once I get registered?

And more stories of relative painlessness, plz.

honestly i have a friend who had one done last year and he claims that it was done with minimal or no anasthetic and he was totally chill the whole time. he's human like the rest of us, so i wouldn't invest untold hours into sweating it

I had one with zero pain. Also, the NO helped distract me.

I now have a huge gold toof in the back of my mouth that's really hard to show off.

Mine's right at the front. Would rather not have a gold tooth, to be honest. But that's kind of the last thing I'm worried about whilst I'm sitting here in agony.

The root canal yesterday was actually not a big deal & the novacaine worked all day & vicodin worked later but this morning there's plenty of PAIN. Anybody who's had one and can tell me how long stuff hurt for them afterwards will be helping me out. Thanks, ouch

I cheated, my roots were already dead from infection when I had the procedures, so it was more like scraping out the dead black goo and not at all painful. I never used the Vicodin, just a few Advil for one morning and then done.

I wonder why it hurts so much? My jaw was WAY more sore from being forced open to get at a back tooth, WAY more sore than the tooth or gums were.

might be getting one of these today! at least i hope so, because the pain is awfully unpleasant and my lymph nodes are so jacked up i feel like there’s an alien growing in the left side of my neck

Gahh, best wishes on that one... I've only had one (with a crown) but was possibly my least favorite time in the chair (after having all four wisdom teeth violently extracted without general anesthesia)

Did one last year, it was basically fine. Not really painful, although as noted above holding your jaw open for that long is pretty uncomfortable. But my tooth was in a lot of pain, so getting it drilled out was a big relief really.

Had my first one last summer and it was pretty painless. The worst part was really the acrid smell of ivory being ground to bits (the root canal was in preparation for a crown.) They said that it was likely to be sore for a few days afterward, with the worst pain occuring a day or two after the procedure itself, but I did not experience anything close to that.

I had one about ten years ago where the root had become infected and was filled with infected crap that had to be painfully scraped out over about an hour. It was absolutely horrendous. But then I had a second one and that was fine. I might have to have another one in a few weeks. I blame the crappy dentist I had as a teenager who just assumed that all my tooth problems were usual teenage disregard for oral hygiene, when in fact they were down to me clenching like a bastard, especially at night. If I'd had a night guard at sixteen as well as my four giant fillings, I wouldn't be in this mess now.

The relief when your tooth no longer bothers you, though. It's so worth it.