Apparently one of mine is. It's that poor last molar, working it's life away on my right side, right next to where my wisdom tooth would have been. About 9 months ago it started aching a bit, like a 3 on a scale to 10. But my dentist has taught me (I almost said "drilled into me"!) that it's better to deal with tooth issues before they get really painful.
So I dutifully went in to see him. He thought it might have been an issue with the crown (I cracked the tooth, and its mate below, on a rock in a salad about 7 years ago) so he ground it a bit, took x-rays, checked to see if my bite had changed and told me to wait and see. We waited; it didn't improve.
Fast forward the next 6 months as he pops the crown off and on to check the tooth underneath numerous times, searching for the problem. One of the times the crown was held on with temporary glue it decided not to stay put. Without the crown, the pain level was up to a 9. Joy! Luckily I was able to get in to have it re-applied quickly.
While testing for issues he discovered that the bottom mate no longer sensed cold. This is not a good thing. Off for a root canal for the bottom tooth. A two stage root canal because the angry tooth wouldn't go numb. It was not fun. It's never a good sign when a dentist makes sure you have pain meds before you leave and recommends that you take them as soon as you get home. All this for a tooth that didn't hurt. (Yet, the endodontist said we caught it just before it got ugly.)
So we deal with bottom tooth and I decide I can live with not chewing on that side. I mean really, I have lots of teeth! I can use all the others. Apparently not. In November he gives me a referral for a root canal on the original tooth. I put it off and put it off and finally have it handled about 2 weeks ago. It was an easy procedure, even with the tooth WAAAAAAAY back in my mouth, and I'm as good as new in 3 days (unlike the other time when it took me just shy of 2 weeks to recover).
So at the end of the root canal the dentist puts that long suffering crown on again with temporary glue. They have to make sure the tooth is stable before they permanently glue it on. On Saturday it pops of in the middle of a wonderful dim sum lunch in Oakland. BUT, this time there is no pain, thanks to the root canal. I pop it in my pocket and go on with my day.
I finally get in to see the dentist on Wednesday. Everything looks so good they decide to permanently glue the crown on early. YAY! One less trip to the chair! My dentist does his magic and I have a working tooth again. The assistant spends a lot of time removing extra cement from a certain area, but she's just being diligent, right? I go home excited to eat my first meal with a full set of happy choppers in almost 9 months. Dinner of choice? A safe burrito. Second bite feels a bit gritty. Huh, maybe some more cement was hiding and worked itself out. Third bite was gritty, too. Wait, I don't remember the crown having a sharp point on one side. I look in the mirror to see that a big chunk of porcelain has become added texture to my meal. Joy.
Back to the dentist today and hey! I get a WHOLE NEW CROWN FOR FREE! Dentist says it's not my fault so they're paying for it. The porcelain continues to flake off as they try in vain to remove the crown. Less than 24 hours before they had put UBERGLUE on that crown to make sure it stayed on FOREVER!!! Trying to take it off wasn't a walk in the park. At times I wondered if we were going to pull the whole tooth out. My old trusty crown really wanted to stay on. In fact, the dentist had to cut the thing off.
That was fun! Not! So a quick appointment that I thought was going to be a small polishing down of a pointy bit turned into a crown fitting. New impressions, new temporary crown, the works. So dentist does his stuff and leaves me to his assistant who makes me the pretty temporary. She makes sure it fits and takes it off to polish it when I hear "snap, skittle, skittle, ooops!" She dropped the crown and it bounced over to the other side of the room.
At this point I'm laughing like an insane person. Really, what else can go wrong with this poor crown? She disinfects it and cements it back in. As she cleans the extra cement off she demonstrated how I'm supposed to carefully floss around it, making sure I know to pull the floss out by one side, not down because I might pull the crown off. She then explained that she had to pull downward to get the extra cement off and SNAP, she pulled the crown off. Time to start the cement process AGAIN! An hour and a half later I'm finally upright again.
At this point I have survived eating dinner and have not yet lost the crown! I have to wait 2 weeks for the permanent one to arrive and I will be treating it very carefully. It won't be hard; I haven't been able to truly eat on that side in months!
For the record: I love my dentist and have utmost faith in him. Apparently I just have a cursed tooth!
Sure has been a "learning experience" for everyone.
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