I have a really horrible feeling I am going to need root canal...

[Fillyjonk]

And I don't even have a bloody dentist atm (my dentist just went private and I have had NHS certificates for the lat 5 years due to having had lots of children )

So I have to find an nhs dentist, hopefully one who can see me soon. (luckily there are several with spaces round here)

I have a complete phobia of dentists anyway due to having had drilling on a not fully anaethesised tooth as a teenager.

This requires braveery and I am not in the mood

AND my tooth hurts.

Oh god poor you. I am also dentist phobic due to sadist dentist drilling me with not enough anasthetic when doing my 1st root canal. Did go on to have a relativly pain free root canal done after that one.

No advice but i know how you feel (((hugs)))

Don't ever do that btw but i know how shit i feel if i even need a filling or whatever now.

oh filly

That's a horrible feeling isn't it? I just hate the whole hassle of going there, never mind the actual pain. Although I have to say I wuite often fall sleep during root canal

It's like, someone else has your children, you kind of drift off into a haze of inner mouth massage iyswim. As long as they do give you enough anaesthetic, that is...which normally they do!!

Try not to panic. It's v rare not to be given enough these days and they'll deffo stop for you if it isn't, and top up which takes about 30 seconds and works really well.

Tell them you are nervous
they will be ultra nice to you

It's not that bad actually.
I was like you and terrified of the dentist.
I had an abscess and needed root canal treatment,the thought of it made me sick.But tbh I hardly felt a thing.I told her that I was terrified and asked her to wait extra long to make sure the injections had taken effect and it was fine.

You'll be ok..honest!

thank you all

Does anyone know if I need to see someone asap for this or can it wait a week or two?

It is quite painful and I'd rather get it over with but am thinking...christmas opening hours...I can cope with the pain but am not getting much sleep and am grumpy.

flight (flihgt? why?) am thinking it MIGHT be a bit of a treat to have a whole hour without dcs...agree it is a toss up as to whether it might be worth root canal, just for peace and quiet...

I cannot tell you all how UNFAIR this is, I am the queen of dental hygiene, and I hardly eat sugar, i know all the crap re not eating between meals, etc, yet I have terrible, terrible teeth and loads of fillings. It is so bloody UNFAIR.

That is truly unfair

It depends what's causing the pain.

I would go asap. It might prevent it getting worse, turning into an abscess etc. which would be awful.

Go and get it seen to while the dentists are quite quiet. Go on - ring them now! Or turn up as an emergency if you can organise it.

Definitely sooner the better.

Name was a typo btw! But can't get in as flight any more, flounced too often so something has to be different!

Fillyjonk, it sounds like you've abcessed, it won't get better without antibiotics at this stage and the dentist will likely want the infection to have settled before they treat you anyway. If you can't get on a list, see an emergency dentist ASAP and get some ABs to start cleaaring the infection. The relief will be immense believe me! The advice I was given for pain control (I've had several abcesses ) are to alternate ibuprofen and paracetamol (or cocodamol) - no more than 3 doses of ibuprofen over 24 hours and no more the 4 doses of paracetamol. Keep dosing yourself regularly to stop the pain getting a hold again. Try to sleep upright - toothache is worse when you lie down and time your doses so you get a pain killer about half an hour before bed.

As for getting the root canal itself done I can honestly say its more boring and uncomfortable than anything else. I was/am a severe dentophobe and didn't see a dentist for over 7 years . I have no had 2 root canals and will be having another in the new year after an abcess a couple of weeks ago for which my lovely dentist drilled and drained the tooth with no anaesthetic!! and no pain. Talk with your dentist before hand, ask for extra anaesthetic and even a gel on your gum before they do the injecting. You can also be given a shot to anaesthetic stright into the tooth if there's any residual sensitivity (sounds bad but again the relief is instant). The drilling is actually fairly minimal and most of the treatment involves filing out the tooth to make sure its nice and clean for the filling - boring but not painful. Afterwards your tooth might feel zingy and you'll likely have jaw ache from having your mouth open for so long. Again regular pain killers will sort that.

I hope this helps to set your mind at rest, I needed details before I could let him do mine and as I've said elsewhere, I think I love him a little bit now

I would try and get it sorted ASAP, get it over with. I was also really dentist phobic, due to having a real sadist "school dentist" who didn't believe in local anaesthetic ("That's just for babies" - ffs). I've since had a root canal done and it was fine, honestly. The dentist knew I was really nervous and gave me enough local and time for it to work and it did not hurt at all.

Good luck!

thanks all, hugely reassuring!

have emergenxy appt this afternoon. From what you've all said they will prob just give me abs and tell me to make another appt soon?

can't get normal appt til jan 15, grr.

They will have a look around, tap it to see which one is hurting, maybe take an x ray.
If they can see there is some infection at the root, they will probably give you some anaesthetic, and make a little hole into the tooth to try and clean it out.
Or they might give you antibiotics but different dentists do different things...some won't prx a/bs unless they've taken out the nasty stuff that's in there.

I'm not sure how it works.

Usually I think they do go in and try and remove the worst of it, then patch it up with a dressing inside the tooth, temporary filling, maybe antibiotics then, and come back in a week to have it properly filled.

I hope it goes Ok and isn't horrid for you x

Good luck for this afternoon. As a fellow hater of dentists, you have my sympathy.
I didn?t have a dentist when I developed an abcess and ended up going down the emergency appt route too.

I had three appointments in total and all done. The first was fairly short. A little look, an x ray, a small anaesthetic jab (only slight and fast wince). Was amazed how fast it worked. I remember waiting for about half an hour as a kid for it to work and the dentist going into the room next door to take another appt. while I sat on my own slowly going numb.. Once numb, he did a little drilling (not painful) and cleaned it out, couple of injections to kill the nerve (and pain) again this was painless. Only knew he was doing it as he talked everything through. Once he did that, he then packed the hole with a temporary dressing and sent me home with a course of ABs just to make sure he caught all the infection (I left it too long!)
Second appt. he removed the temp dressing easy enough, removed the root (after a little anaesthetic so painless) and then went about filling the hole. A little weird holding you mouth open that long and stuffed with those little cotton wool bolster thingies, but not painful at all.
Third follow up appt. was to check out all my other teeth and do a polish etc.
Ironically, the most painful bit was the hygenist in the follow up doing the scale and polish

You will be fine. If I can do it, you will be great. I worry about everything and survived root canal.

How did it go, Filly? I hope you are not in too much pain.

hello all, have been offline for various reasons

it turned out that there is a lot of decay to the tooth (WHY? HOW? I brush and floss THREE TIMES A DAY EVERY BLOODY DAY) and this MAY be the cause of the pain. They xrayed and she wasn't sure if I needed root canal.

So I have had a temporary filling (god that was unpleasent, nice smell of burning tooth), plus on the emergency open door so they couldn't take extra long for the anaethetic to work, but it was ok-still a bit painful but fingers crossed its just the nerves settling down. I so don't want root canal. Now to find me a dentist...