Dane Allred’s Rules of Engagement
DENTAL HI-JINKS
I'm not really sure why I believe the story I always tell everyone about why I have the world's worst teeth. It's not that my mouth is disfigured or that they are all rotting away in my head, but I doubt there is a tooth in my head that has not had dental work done on it. The story I always tell is that when I was weaned my mother gave a bottle of Coke to suck on instead. I can never remember there not being Coca-Cola in the house as I was growing up, and all that was asked of me is that I not drink too much. I seriously think I had at least 16 ounces a day my entire childhood, but it was probably just a drink or two from the open bottle in the refrigerator every day.
I had so many decaying teeth growing up that the dentist must have scheduled regular appointments for me every three months. At least that's what it felt like. And to top things off, I learned at an early age the incredible pain associated with root canals. I think I had my first one at eight or nine, but it couldn't have been any later than ten or eleven.
One of the strange things about having root canals early and often is that I did get a fair amount of tolerance to pain, which may explain the rest of these experiences. It's not that I've ever intentionally hurt myself or even wanted to, but for some reason, into each life a little pain must fall. For those of you who have had none, I think I have received whatever you missed.
The dentist's office even has a particular smell that I have always associated with pain, and I have to force myself to relax whenever I sniff that scent of numbing agent. Even just walking past a dentist's office in a business complex can make my body start to tense up. So I have learned many techniques for coping with the drill and the needle. Of course, I have already told the dentist and you that I can't see the needle coming toward me or we are going to have problems. But once I get into that peaceful place where I have convinced myself that this too will end, if I but endure, then I can sit back and make fun of myself and my petty complaints.
With literally dozens of cavities filled and many root canals, there is not really one episode of pain that stands out in my mind. But one experience with a root canal did convince me that using gas for these procedures is probably not the best idea for me.
I was in Spanish Fork one summer and needed some emergency (can you need emergency root canals?) root work done. Once the dentist saw what kind of a mélange of filled cavities and former root canals he was facing, he turned to his favorite tools for managing pain - laughing gas. Nitrous Oxide. It was really like a scene from "Little Shop of Horrors", and believe me, you really do feel like laughing.
Here I was about to have the root scraped out of my tooth with tiny rat-tail rasps which looked like wire. If you have ever had toothache pain associated with a bad cavity which is near the root, you know what I'm talking about. There is no more focusing and sharp pain which goes immediately to your brain than root canal digging. And you are talking to someone who is very closely associated with many, many different types of pain. This is the kind that makes you stand straight up from a prone position.
The great thing about gas is that you can reach a point where you really don't care what is going on, and you are only vaguely aware of someone playing around with your mouth, but you don't much care about that either. I hope the next part is not the typical experience with nitrous oxide, but it was enough to scare me out of having gas ever again.
I think the dentist may have used a bit too much gas on me, because I actually had an out-of-body experience while sitting in the dentist's chair. I didn't see a bright light or a tunnel or any of my dead relatives, but I did see a strange situation taking place in front of me. It seemed like there were two people wrangling for space around a third person, and they seemed very interested in getting their hands as far down the throat of that third person as they could. It made me laugh because it looked so comical. Here were two adults struggling over some poor kid. I laughed to myself again and was thankful that it wasn't me sitting in that chair.
And then I noticed that I had a very strange perspective on the whole affair. I seemed to be floating in the corner of this room looking down at these Three Stooges. It was strange to be looking down on the scene, and I understood what it must be like to be eight feet tall and be looking down on the entire population.
Then slowly, ever so slowly, the realization dawned on me that it was me sitting in that chair, and that the dentist and his nurse were trying their best to pull the root out my tooth, apparently by reaching into my mouth all the way down to my ankles. I was seeing myself being worked on, and the best (worst?) part of all is that I didn't care. They could have dismembered me and I would have watched calmly, wondering how that poor devil, I mean me, could stand the pain.
I have never had gas again for a tooth, and because of the experience, I am trying my very hardest to stay out of the hospital and face that anesthesia again. You won't think this is true as you read the rest of my mostly self-inflicted aches and pains.
One of the truly delightful things about having rotting teeth is that you develop and special skill called eating on one side of your mouth. I didn't realize I had been doing this my whole life until I grew up and actually got control of the cavity situation. All you have to do is find a comfortable place to chew in your mouth. If one side hurts, just eat on the other side. I got so good at eating on one side of my mouth that sometimes people would comment on the wad in the side of my mouth, and I would just shrug and tell them I had a toothache on the other side. There was always more room for food, and even though I must have resembled some kind of half-chipmunk, I was content to endure the pain until it was absolutely necessary to get it fixed.
I was so fearful of the dentist and his collection of needles as I was growing up that I would let teeth get abscessed before I would admit to the pain.
What this meant at the dentist's office was much more pain than I really needed to endure - if I had taken care of it earlier it probably would have just been another filling. When I waited this long there were abscesses and root canals, which involve taking small files and scraping out what is left of the root of your tooth. Very painful indeed.
Did I already say I think I have had nine or ten root canals? I think I covered that already.
I still get cavities today. A lifetime of sweets is hard to kick. But I do go to the dentist faster now, and if there is any pain in my mouth I get it taken care of right away. I can actually eat on either side of my mouth whenever I feel like it - and I don't have to worry about eating on the wrong side.
Perhaps some of my relatives have the correct answer to dental pain. Just get all of your teeth pulled and get dentures. Then all you have to worry about is where you left your teeth the night before.
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