Dental health neededstraight for all... that’s the tooth
IT’S over. Thank God for the miracle of modern dentistry.
I’m out the other side of a month-long tooth drama that turned me into a basket case.
It’s never pleasant, but some people will be grand. I had full-on phobia due to previous dental trauma.
“It’s only a tooth extraction” I told myself. “Get a grip. It’s not the Cuban Missile Crisis.”
But logic had left the building. Clarity and perspective wouldn’t come, even though I knew objectively there were obviously far worse things in the world.
If I couldn’t handle this, how would I cope with something serious?
Normally, once my son is well and happy, nothing bothers me – that’s all that matters.
But there’s something about losing teeth that taps into human mortality and our fleeting time on earth. It’s losing part of yourself.
I have nightmares about mine falling out.
So last month, when I found myself in the dentist’s chair hearing the word “extraction” my heart sank. The ordeal, the expense, the state of my face with a gap in it, all rushed at me in a flood of irrational fear and worry.
I went through a kind of seven stages of tooth grief; the pain of an exposed nerve, the fear of the required extraction, denial about it being necessary.
The dread when I realised it was; the acceptance of my fate. The reality of it actually happening.
And finally, unexpectedly, the relief afterwards.
I found myself in the situation due to what’s called “bruxism” – a habit of clenching teeth, worse in sleep.
I clenched a healthy tooth until it cracked, splitting in two, causing the usual awful ache. There was no saving it, so it was off to the dental hospital for an extraction.
I had four weeks until the dreaded appointment, which loomed in my diary like
a date with the gallows.
In the meantime, the broken fang was stuck, sore in my mouth, like crunching down on a ceramic tile.
I couldn’t bear it, but the thought of an extraction was worse. I felt like a rat in a trap.
My mind kept returning to the last time I’d had a tooth out, about 12 years ago, where I was a FULL HOUR in a chair in what felt like a physical assault.
The dentist might as well have been stripped to the waist with the exertion.
It bled for hours and took weeks to recover.
It was a botch job in a bargain basement clinic in the depths of the recession.
This time, it was a totally different experience.
I will be forever grateful for having the wherewithal to be in the first-rate hands of oral surgeon Dr Justin Moloney.
He runs a centre of excellence called the Harmony Clinic in Dublin and one service it provides is specialist care for nervous patients.
I was never going to love it, but I felt calm and safe and he had it out quickly and cleanly in minutes.
There was no pain or bleeding afterwards. I went to bed and slept well for the first time in a month.
All going well, I will have a replacement tooth there within six months. It was all fine in the end.
But dentistry is a costly business, and those of us who can budget for it over half a year are the lucky ones.
A decent dental service is nonexistent for those who are disadvantaged, which is cruel and unequal.
This is a medical issue that affects our physical and mental health and all should have access to it.