I’m typing this with a chunk of gauze stuffed in my mouth as a result of have just had a tooth extracted. This tooth has had quite a history. It had a big filling for a while, but later needed a crown. That crown was fine for many years until 2019, when it came loose.

I visited my dentist, who said there wasn’t a lot of tooth remaining there. He was worried that by pulling out the crown to clean things up and try to reset it, he might break the tooth. That didn’t happen. Instead he did a re-glue job on the crown and I was on my way. The repaired crown has come loose 3 or 4 times since then. Each time, my dentist warned me that there wasn’t much tooth but he’d try a minimalists fix. The last time he repaired it was not very long ago, and at that time he told me that tooth would have to go soon and be replaced by either an implant or a bridge. Sure enough, only weeks later, the crown came loose yet again.

The procedure went slowly but really it was no big deal. In fact, the most painful part of the extraction was getting the freezing injected on the palette side of my tooth. “It’s going to pinch a bit”. I’m sure they teach them that bit of bullshit at dental school. It pinched a lot. My dentist was able to work the remains of my tooth loose with various tools until finally it came out in one piece. He said extractions are usually faster, but he took a slow and careful approach in an effort to keep the root in one piece.

Now it heals for 3 or 4 months before we do any more work in there.