Root Canals don't hurt.......yeah right

I had my long awaited root canal yesterday, the roots were stripped out well over 10 months ago now, but because of cock-ups with my female polish dentist who has now been sent back to the salt mines of Siberia for being incompetent... it's only now I managed to get my new Polish dentist with broken English to do it...fair do's though he has a greater vocabulary than the previous one, little did he know he was to add some choice Anglo Saxon words to his ever expanding vocabulary

I've had root canal treatment before and although it's not my idea of a fun day out the pain involved is transitory, short term pain, long term gain :) the worst bit being when they remove the root itself, after that it's plain sailing and you are pain free....

UNLESS...

You are made to wait for 10 months before it's completed, I "thought" it would be a pain free procedure as previously because of the lack of roots, but alas the root canal itself had started to close up or basically heal up, growing back and filling the void, which meant the dentist had to ream out the canals so they were big enough to fill once more, it also meant he had to drill down THROUGH the root tips to ensure the whole root canal had been enlarged and all "nasty" material removed.....there is one slight problem with this procedure, you have to have it done without being numbed so the dentist has feedback when he has drilled through the root tip and made contact with tender flesh.... something which would be impossible with anesthesia.....

He got feedback alright and plenty of it, in fact he learnt a new swear word with each tip he drilled through, and I have to say on doing the second root of the three, he slipped and jammed the rapidly rotating file/reamer right into the my gum as it passed through my root tip and embedded itself deep into my gum, I wasn't that alarmed after I had stopped screaming and
cursing, after all mistakes happen.....and as my tortured gum subsided slightly pain wise... my alarm levels were pretty low.... right up until the sucky thing the dental nurse gingerly moves around your mouth like a Kirby vacuum cleaner turned from opaque white to bright red, and the dentist said "quick lighter" to which I heard the unmistakable sound of a gas lighter
being struck behind me...."was he having a smoke break I thought ?" no he wasn't.....on looking back I could see the dentist heating the reamer/file to a lovely cherry red and then I felt the heat on my lips and tongue as he gingerly rammed it into root hole number 2 immediately stemming the blood squirting from the hole....."Marvelous" I thought (well actually the scream
was probably heard in Carmarthen, possibly Swansea) I thought not only is he content with torturing me with a high speed file but now he is ramming a superheated one straight into my gum via my root canal, courtesy of a 99p lighter bought from the local SPAR shop !!!

The wince factor was way up there, more than I had experienced before..... The pain was borderline "way..way too much" I've had injuries to my body that some would consider extreme in the last 4 or so years, such as a smashed coccyx (arse bone) and three broken ribs (all at the same time, I might add), a broken finger ripped ligaments from climbing etc and various other tears, rips cuts and general clumsinesses, but for that hour of being drilled and filled was utter and unadulterated agony... and if childbirth is worse than what I experienced with those 3 root canals then I take my hat off to women all around the world, my lower jaw is aching like mad, it wasn't helped by the fact that my new dentist has fingers like a bunch of large banana's.... my mouth is split on the right hand side from having it forced open and my top lip was very nearly impaled on my canine by his other hand. Overall not a very pleasant experience.... give me Novacaine next time and lots of it!!!