sweetmonkey - don?t be scared, the only pain I experienced was the initial injection and that s only seconds. The rest was merely uncomfortable and a bit achy for the rest of the day after anaesthetic wore off.
Right, seeing as you have asked, here is my tale of woe concerning root canal work:
Noticed nagging pain, have no registered NHS dentist available in the area (rang up every last one in yellow pages!) So phoned NHS direct, got me onto an emergency one who is private but does one morning a month for the NHS of emergency cases - initial "first aid" patch up work is NHS, follow up is your call, private if you stay with him. I.e. his way of getting new private customers in through the door.
First consultation - x ray confirming problem - abcess under old filling affecting root badly, chip off side of tooth (I thought a bit of filling fell out ). Was told he could take the tooth out or patch me up with a temp. filling and a clean out, ready for a proper filling after surgery. Chose to pay for the root surgery so it was numbed, old filling removed, washed out with a "bleach" liquid and temporary filling put on. Cost £40.
Had to wait 8 weeks for the next appt. Cost £150. Temp filling removed, numbed completely with horrid injection. Lots of drilling noises, the root removed (no tugging at all but did catch sight of it as it came out...yuck...) Lots of prodding and poking as he cleaned up the cavitiy space. A permanent filling put in and a bleach stuff left inside to deaden and sterilise the space, stopping infection. End of phase two (35 mins)
Two weeks later appt. 3 Cost £150. (Today). Again, horrid injection, works almost straight away so nice and numb (incl. tongue and ear!) A hole is drilled into and through the permanent filling. The cavity is "drained"? , cleaned up. Then he used loads of different sizes of files to file down into the root space. Left three in, told to not bite down on them or they would snap off and never be removed ( rather scary thought and enough to make you want to close your mouth!) x ray told him how far down to fill/file. Then he put a wierd rubber "drip" tray thing over my mouth with little hole to isolate the tooth. Very uncomfortable as the rubber mat thing seemed to cover all my mouth and my nose so felt a little pannicky as couldn?t breathe easily, and very hot in there. He put a rubber filling stuff inside and got out a cigarette lighter and heated up the end of another tool (I kid you not) Saw I was pannicking a little and explained that the filling is made of a rubber type stuff and so he needed to melt it and set it into place. Very odd to see smoke coming out of my mouth but not painful, just uncomfortable and a little surreal. Once he had done that, he poked around a bit more and finally filled the hole up with fresh amalgam. Took one last x ray - this is where he went quiet and squinted at the screen, spotting a white bit at the bottom of one of the root bits - telling me that it was a snapped off file, but not to worry... I left, paid and started to worry at home. Time - 50 mins.
Sorry for the lengthy description, head still not clear and face still rather numb - nearly fives hours now so thought it should have worn off by now?
starlover - OMG, your poor cousin, I am so shocked at that. I really hope Jasper is around at some point and can give some advice.
mcca - what an awful time you have had. Are you all sorted now? I am so confused - like you have had awful experiences in the past and had been really happy to pay for this privately as he has been really professional, calm and not painful.That was until today?s episode of the snapped file... now I don?t know what to think. Should I find someone else, I have arranged an initial appt. for my 4 yr old in August and feel like cancelling now - but if not him, how do I know who to trust instead?