I have a confession to make…
Until recently, with the exception of when I had my wisdom teeth removed, I hadn’t been to the dentist in years. And when I say years, I mean like A LOT of years. Yeah I brush my teeth and all that, and occasionally dabble in flossing (boo!) , but I never had a cleaning, had fillings, or any of that stuff.
I resolved to get on track with that stuff, several times, and a couple months ago I finally went in. They survived the situation, and set me up with a plan of action. I definitely had some gingivitis going on, and a few small cavities going on, so I wanted to get all of that taken care of.
I had to cancel the first two appointments b/c I wouldn’t have been able to get off work in time to walk to the office. I worked it out today though, and went in today for something called a root planing and scaling. It’s basically an intense cleaning, where they go under the gum and clean your teeth down to the roots, using the little scrapey thingies, and some little ultra-sonic thingy (proper terminology FTW!).
It doesn’t really hurt, because they numb the area up to high heaven, and apparently that anesthesia lasts awhile, because it’s been almost 4 hours and I’m not feeling much of anything on that side of my mouth. It was especially fun when I got home, and tried to rinse with salt water as recommended, and had it all run out of my mouth and down my shirt…Yay!
One cool thing though? My teeth are alot whiter than I really thought possible. The hygenist managed to get a lot of crap off (please don’t think my teeth were like super disgusting or anything, they were just stained from many things, including drinking coffee and from when I used to smoke).
So yeah, that’s been my day. I go back in couple weeks for root planing on the right side, and then get fillings, sealants, and maybe whitening (if I can afford it).
Fun times all around!
