This is the tooth, the whole tooth

THIS week’s column starts with a trigger warning. People can be a little sniffy about trigger warnings and start bandying about words like “softy” and “snowflake”. But then, when they find out that this trigger warning is about dentistry, half of them will say, “Oh, no, well, fair enough.”

So, I was having trouble with a tooth, an impacted wisdom tooth to be exact. If you don’t know what an impacted wisdom tooth is, you are either lucky, or you are in for a rude awakening one day.

Basically, your teeth normally emerge from the gum vertically, but impacted wisdom teeth – and they are common – emerge lazily and almost horizontally, and they form a small gap between its crown and the next perfectly upstanding tooth.

And if small gaps love anything, it’s bits of food. They love bits of food so much it’s very difficult to get the gaps to give them up. This means that when you brush your teeth, you spend 90% of your time dealing with the gap between just two teeth, like a bad teacher exerting most of their effort on that one annoying kid.

So, although it was not causing me any pain, I decided I wanted it to be expelled, because bits of food that can’t be removed start to make their presence known, if you follow me.

I went to my dentist and asked him to get rid of it, and he referred me to the local dental hospital, presumably because he’s been treating me for a few years and he didn’t want any part of this.

A very capable fifth-year student saw me on my first appointment. I was X-rayed and it was confirmed that I very much did have the tooth about which I had been complaining. This was a relief. I hate those imaginary teeth that people sometimes have.

She explained the risks of my operation, and I signed a form, and went away, pleased that I was going to be rid of this nuisance. I had had a couple of similarly impacted wisdom teeth removed about 20 years ago and knew what the procedure was like – fairly unpleasant, with a few days of recovery, but ultimately worthwhile. Like jogging.

I then received a letter inviting me to a follow-up treatment appointment with the consultant. “Ah,” I thought. “This will be the appointment after which my extraction will be booked in. What this absolutely is not is the extraction itself, because there would be some sort of leaflet telling me how I would have to behave after the extraction, including, for example, advice to take a couple of days off work.”

On the day, I went to work as usual, and told my line manager that I would have to pop out of the office for an hour later that afternoon, explaining why. “Are you sure they’re not going to take it out today?” he asked. I scoffed at him, for the reasons I outlined in the previous paragraph.

You do not need an MA in Gary Bainbridge Studies to know what happened to me when I arrived at the hospital...

I was ushered into a room, to be greeted by a consultant, a registrar, two nurses, and a student dental hygienist. “Right, let’s get this tooth out,” the consultant said.

“But... But...” I said. “I wasn’t expecting this now. I thought this was just a follow-up appointment.” She gave me a look. “I didn’t get a leaflet,” I added, pathetically. “I mean, I’ve got to go back to work.”

“What do you do?”

“Erm, I sit at a desk and press keys.” “Yeah, you’ll be OK,” she said.

I sat in the chair while my mouth was numbed, and I was subjected to what I can only describe as an assault.

From the sounds of things, my tooth was the biggest and most awkwardly placed any of the medical professionals in that room had ever encountered. I expect it’s in the Natural History Museum now.

“You’re doing very well,” the consultant said to me, while the registrar stood on my chest, the better to get purchase on my tooth. I didn’t exactly have a choice.

After a couple of stitches, I was allowed to return to work.

“How did you get on at the dental hospital?” my line manager asked.

“I gon’t gant go galk agout it,” I dribbled.

But at least I can brush my teeth properly now.

My mouth was numbed, and I was subjected to what I can only describe as an assault