blackest wrote:
I hope you got to keep the pain killers up for a while after that extraction. My current dentist is pretty good at minimizing pain.
No man, I had to get the job done cheap,
if I remember correctly (it was 2014) the total cost was $28.50.
I was a full time student doing a diploma of photo imaging...
I was broke; a couple of days before the tooth broke,
I'd been ripped off for $1000...
nothing it seemed, was going right around that time.
A piece of the tooth (you see above), broke off, the remainder had a sharp
jagged edge that was lacerating my tongue... it was high time to have it out.
So I went to the dental hospital on Swanston St, a big place,
that I worked on as an Industrial Abseiler when it was being built.
I believe it's a training facility; an "annex" of Melbourne University...
maybe that explains why the dentist dislocated my jaw in her first
attempt to extract the tooth... she was pretty young and her assistant was
even younger.
I've had my rant about bad dentists, so to balance the dental Karmic
values, I'll tell you a story about an outstandingly excellent Dentist, especially
in comparison to the other horrors that I've encountered...
and that very tooth.
About 30 years before the lady at the Dental Hospital dislocated my jaw
I had what turned out to be an infection (set off by the shoddy work of
a dentist mentioned in my former post) that compelled me to see another
Dentist.
I was very well employed back then and money was no object
so a private practice it was.
The receptionist at the first place I went to said to me quietly "the dentist
here is bad news, I wouldn't let him touch me if I was paid... my previous
boss was great though; Zev Degan on North Rd... I'd go there if I were you.
So I did that.
I rocked up on my motorcycle wearing my legendary Mars LeMans
leather Jacket.
When Zev and his very attractive nurse had me in the
chair I said to Zev, "this isn't going to hurt
us is it?"
Doctor and nurse exchanged a knowing look that should have alarmed me.
Zev then looked and probed around my mouth, and actually said, "there's
been some pretty bad work done in here"... the botched root canals previously done.
His next words were: "Ten millimetre reamer nurse". she replied, sorry Doctor
there's no ten millimetre reamer. He replied: "15mm reamer nurse."
Nurse: "sorry Doctor there's no 15mm millimetre reamer."
Doctor: "20mm reamer nurse."
Nurse: "sorry Doctor there's no 20mm millimetre reamer."
Doctor: "25mm reamer nurse."
Nurse: "sorry Doctor there's no 25mm millimetre reamer."
At that point, when terror started to grip my soul, the nurse
added; "you could use the cork screw we used on the bottles
of claret we had for morning tea" I realized they were getting even
with me, for my, "not going to hurt
us" jibe.
Zev painlessly removed the nerves the incompetent dentist failed
to recognize.
He also filled a massive cavity that was in the tooth pictured above which was little
more than a shell at the time.
He said he'd normally extract it, being in the condition it was in.
However as it was the last molar I had that mated with another,
he repaired it... so I could chew.
He added that the repair (which was also executed painlessly)
would only last about 12 months as there was so little tooth to work with.
That tooth and Zevs repair lasted 28 years.