Can You Really Appreciate a Root Canal?
Yes, yes you can.
Tuesday, January 2nd, 2024 (posted in the wee hours of Jan 3rd, but let’s just ignore that, shall we?)…
So, the question of the moment is: “Can you really appreciate a root canal?”
The answer really is: Yes!
A few years back, I was bitten by our pet rat. It was mostly my fault, because he had gotten in a fight with his brother and I (stupidly) put my hand in the cage while Silk still had his hair standing on end. Sigh.
Within minutes, the area around the bite wound was swelling. Quickly.
A few hours later, I got a tetanus booster (it had been 9 years since my last one) and headed home with a script for oral antibiotics. That night, as my hand puffed up like a pillow, my son came downstairs, every hour, to double check I was okay. I spent the morning talking to an online ER nurse, saw another doctor in the afternoon, and was admitted at the nearest Tacoma ER by dinnertime. After 72 hours of intravenous antibiotics, and narrowly missing surgery on my hand, my sons (who had spent the first 36 hours with me at the hospital) arrived to drive me home.
Fear of losing my hand (and the challenge that would present to a budding novelist and citizen journalist) assuaged, I grabbed my toothbrush as soon as I got home (I’d not had one in hospital and I desperately needed to brush my teeth) and decided I was due for a nice flossing, as well.
An hour later, my husband drove me to our local Thriftway Grocery Store, minutes before they closed, so I could buy anything and everything they had for tooth pain. My best guess is that I was grinding/gritting my teeth at the hospital, while extremely stressed and unable to brush my teeth, and I think I exacerbated a hairline crack in the tooth while flossing. Whatever happened, I have little to no history with tooth pain, so I was fairly panicked by this sudden, new assault on my poor body!
I called my dentist’s emergency line, she was helpful, I went home with myriad pain relief options, and they got me in the next day. Their conclusion: I needed a root canal.
For two years, I delayed getting that root canal.
It was clear that I had an infection in my tooth. I used special toothpaste, threatened my hygienist with dire consequences if she cleaned around “that” tooth (not really - my dentist loves me!), and tried all sorts of “natural” home remedies to help my body heal. Which, in almost every situation, does not happen.
Eventually, I went to see a most excellent endodontist in our area, and she said, “Doesn’t it bother you that you have an ongoing infection in your skull? Near your brain?”
Hmmm. I hadn’t really thought of it like that. I made one more phone call, to a local naturopathic dentist known for helping people avoid standard treatment. He said, “Nothing is going to fix this, except a root canal.” And I caved.
(I will add here, that we were blessed with AMAZING dental insurance, and I knew exactly how special that was, given that my Mom was living through her elderly years without any dental insurance at all. That is not fun. Nor should it be a thing, but hey, we can talk about the medical snafu situation in another post.)
By the way, do you know what “SNAFU” stands for? I’ll give you a hint (because I just learned it today, from a vet) — it’s a military term. Share in the comments, if you think you know! Okay, back to the story…
Full disclosure: I fear pain at the dentist. I’ve barely ever had any, but from a young age, I’ve had a thing about needles. Probably because I had several surgeries as a child and back in the 1970’s? Yeah, the medical world wasn’t very kind to children. So, I was N.E.R.V.O.U.S. But then, and I can’t remember exactly when or how it happened…but reality set in. And that changed everything.
We are effing LUCKY to be able to get a root canal!
Consider the historical alternatives. No one did anything and you simply suffered. Or, they packed your mouth with all sorts of awesome lichen and herbs, but unfortunately, you were the guy who it didn’t work for and so…you suffered. Eventually the suffering got so bad, the idea of someone jamming a stick against your swollen, screamingly painful tooth, and whacking the back of the stick with a large rock…sounded appealing. Then, of course, things got way, way worse as natural remedies disappeared (you can thank the Catholic Church for massacring all the healers, midwives and wise women — and their cats, which likely unleashed the Black Plague upon Europe due to the sudden rodent population explosion), and we entered the medieval period of, um…can we call it healthcare?
Eventually, thank god, Opium arrived from the Middle East or Asia, and then, as your teeth were yanked out of your skull by the local farrier or blacksmith (yes, they did most of the dental work back in the day), there were false teeth made of all sorts of materials (like George Washington’s, which I think were made of bone or ivory?). But, I digress.
All of that aside, even just a couple decades ago, root canals were nothing compared to what they can do NOW! And, once all of that ran through my head, my attitude swung around 180 degrees. Still, I had decades of habituated fear and nerves to deal with, right? So, here’s what I did.
As I laid there, for at least two hours, a non-stop mantra of appreciations ran through my head. And it was all real, authentic and honest.
I was SO grateful to have insurance.
I was SO grateful for the kindness of my endodontist and her assistant.
I was SO grateful to not be living in the past.
I was SO grateful to not be living right here, in the Pacific Northwest, without dental insurance.
I was SO grateful to not be living in the many parts of the world today where a root canal would be entirely unavailable or impossible to access.
I was SO grateful to have an endodontist of great skill only a short drive (plus a ferry ride) away.
I was SO grateful to be able to distract myself by watching Guardians of the Galaxy on a television screen mounted on the ceiling directly above me!
I was SO grateful to have a headset on, so the sound of the drills was muffled.
I was SO grateful for NOVOCAIN and either epinephrine or norepinephrine (?) which causes the numbing agent to be metabolized slower by the body (making it last longer and be more effective).
I was SO grateful that when I asked for more numbness, I was treated with kindness and understanding.
I was SO grateful for the incredible high-tech tools, skills, materials and overall procedure that I was blessed to experience.
In short: I was, and am, SO grateful for my root canal.
I am sharing this because I have another medical procedure coming up in a couple weeks (which I’ll talk about later), and because of my root canal experience (and “ah-ha” moment), I am approaching my upcoming appointment with a great deal of equanimity, gratitude and far, far, far less fear that I would have felt, back before my root canal.
If you, or a loved one, is scheduled for a modern medical procedure — which may still be somewhat uncomfortable, unpleasant or even painful — I share this story of appreciation in hopes that it will also help you manage emotions and shift perspective in the best way possible.
With love,
March
I appreciate this post and the perspective that in many ways we are better off than our ancestors when it comes to dental health, but I must note that root canals are extremely toxic and can lead to numerous health problems. As a 35-year health and wellness educator, I have seen numerous people with wide varieties of chronic health issues whose health improves significantly simply as a result of removing all root canals and amalgam (mercury laden metal) fillings. A tooth that requires a root canal is a dead tooth. A root canal procedure uses toxic chemicals to preserve the dead tooth in place, and over time it's very common to find residual pockets of infection above the dead tooth. This infection most often isn't felt physically because the nerves of the dead tooth are, well, dead. But the infection circulates throughout the body impacting the immune system and degrading health. An alternative to root canals is pulling the tooth and going through the process of surgically inserting an implant to replace the root of the tooth and once that heals attaching a permanent fake tooth. Opting for non-metal implants is gaining more popularity due to the growing understanding of the negative impacts of various metals in one's mouth. Implants are expensive and definitely not an experience I would look forward to, but the health benefits are worth exploring. It's way past time we all begin to put our focus on the underlying causes of diseases. Rather than putting so much money into finding treatments and cures for the ever-growing number of acute and chronic illnesses rampant in the world, we should be asking what is causing the illness. More often than not, toxic chemicals in our food, environment, and even mouth (!!) are contributors.