You know, extracting a tooth, especially a chronically infected one is pretty damn easy. I got in the chair and a topical anaesthetic was applied to the surrounding gums. A minute later, the real local anaesthetic was injected into me via a needle, all painless.
We waited about three minutes and then my dentist pushed my tooth around and asked me if I could feel anything. I said no and so he went for it. He pulled on it for like ten seconds or so, I felt a bit of pressure and the damn thing came out. The time between when I got into the chair to when the tooth came out was probably less than 15 minutes.
He cleaned out the socket a bit and there was a lot of suctioning around my mouth (there’s a joke in there somewhere). Then they rolled up a bit of gauze and stuck it into the now empty socket. I was told to bite down, which I did.
My dentist then show me the extracted tooth. Man, those roots are long! One of the roots was all black. Ewwww! That thing had been festering in my mouth for probably a couple of years. I’ll post a pic when I get home. Oh yeah, I’m still at work.
Anyways, the bleeding stopped fairly quickly and there’s only a tiny bit of swelling. It’s only a bit sore as well so I think I don’t even need any pain medication. Just like last time, I think if I really wanted to, I could play basketball tonight.
I’ve also eaten since the tooth extraction. I had french fries from McD’s which was perfect since they’re so small, they can be easily chewed on one side of my mouth.
Now granted, I’m probably going be in for an ass-kicking tomorrow since that’s when your body makes you pay for a fairly intensive medical procedure.
More later.