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Old 10-25-2001, 04:07 PM
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Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: La Sal, Utah
Posts: 531
I Lived to Tell the Tale

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Hellbender:
My First! Are they as much fun as everyone says?
[/quote]

Hellbender,

Well, I had my first root canal last month (molar #2) ... and although I believe I had a good endodontist, it was really no fun at all. For some reason, he had me head down in the chair which was not comfortable for the 2 hour procedure. Then having to hold my mouth open the widest that had ever been required was no joy either. He also had so me thin rubber "sterile field" thingy clamped in my mouth, that extended over my lower face, and that was rather novel. The thing that immediately caught my eye when I was first in the chair was the vast assortment of what looked like small drills and rotary files ... which were later used to manually "ream out" the nerve canals (the REAL highlight of the afternoon). The sodium hypochlorite (i.e., bleach) solution used to disinfect the canals was interesting. And the "Exorcist" part was rather neat ... this had to do with a hot-melt elastomeric compound that was heated-up to a pretty high temperature. Once this was packed into each canal (3 total) to permanently seal them ... the catalytic reaction caused a fair amount of smoke to come rising out of my mouth. This was sort of like your mouth becoming a special effect in its own right.

As relatively "bad" as the procedure was, it was a far better experience (and less painful) than the truly severe pain I went through just before the procedure due to a dead and festering nerve.

In any case, I hope your root canal goes well for you Hellbender.

Don
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