Like Pulling Teeth

[May 27, 2015] Wednesday

OK - it's really not like pulling teeth - that might have been easier and less stressful in the long run.

Over the past couple of weeks, Molly had been stressing out a bit over a sore in her mouth, on her upper gum. She figured she had scratched it, and it would heal up. Over time, though, it didn't, and it started oozing a bit, so we figured we better have a dentist here in the United States take a look, just in case it was serious.

Turns out, she had a cyst on the root of one of her molars. Time for a root canal. As the dentist finished, and took final x-rays to make sure everything looked good, he saw another tooth alongside the affected one that had an incomplete root canal, and suggested a crown for the one he had just done the root canal on. He said they could be fine for some time to come, but the likelihood was that eventually the work would have to be done.

In the spirit of preventative maintenance, we decided to have it all done now, just to be sure we didn't face the need to have an (as yet) unmet and untried Bolivian dentist take care of it. Our dentist has done really good work so far in Molly's mouth (four previous root canals that have not had any issues), so we were comfortable with his suggestions, and went ahead with the work.

After a total of five hours in the dentist's chair, Molly's teeth are fixed, and she's doing well.