The root of the problem

You know how when you go to the dentist they ask if you have any teeth that are bothering you? I had never answered yes to that question. I only have a few fillings. When I had my dentist appointment last week I told the hygienist that I had trouble on one of my bottom front teeth when I drank hot liquids like tea. I expected that I was going to need another filling. She did x-rays and didn't see anything but mentioned it to the dentist.

When the dentist came in he looked at my x-rays and that area of my mouth and said he couldn't see anything to be concerned about. Then he did a test where he put cold on that spot. It should hurt for a second and then the pain/cold feeling should go away. On that tooth the pain did not go away after several seconds.

He then broke the news to me that it is never a good sign if hot liquids bother your teeth. Also that he can see no reason for pain there. My tooth looks perfectly healthy. To make a long explanation short, I need a root canal on that tooth and there is no evidence of why I need a root canal there. His best explanation is that that tooth had some trauma sometime in my life and the tooth finally realized it.

I am scheduled to have this done in a few weeks. I am supposed to pay close attention to how this tooth feels while I wait. I really can't win-if it stops hurting while drinking hot liquids that either means that the nerve completely died or that there was something weird going on recently and it is better now. But the dentist could see no reason that I could avoid a root canal at this point. For now, my nerve is dying inside the tooth, but my body hasn't figured it out yet. It would be really bad news if I wait until my body figures it out and an infection begins in there. The good news is it is on a front tooth so I will just need the root canal and a tiny filling, I will not need a crown.

I wouldn't have mentioned it if it hadn't bothered me recently. If I hadn't mentioned it they wouldn't have noticed it from the x-rays. I asked if I could wait until my 6 month checkup and the dentist was horrified by that suggestion. He wants to take care of it now before my body figures it out and I have a worse problem there.

Ram allows me to get a Starbucks after going to the doctor. I wonder how many Starbucks a root canal is worth? Especially when it doesn't look like I did anything wrong and the tooth is perfectly healthy, but the nerve inside that tooth is not! The bummer of all this is we don't even get Be Well, Serve Well $ for dentist appointments any more.