I received a call yesterday; informing me that a patient had cancelled his appointment and I could push mine to an earlier date. I agreed. I was under the comforting thought that my 3rd visit to the Endodontist would be my last. It would have effectively spelt the end of my root canal re-treatment. How wrong I was.

When I arrived in the treatment room, I was let known that the post to be inserted into my root canal was not available, and yet another visit is required to get it done. These visits aren’t your average tooth cleaning sessions with your friendly neighborhood dentist. On the contrary it hurts a great deal.

You don’t go “ouch ouch” for short mini second bursts, but “oww!!” for a long period of time, several hours at least.

Countless X-rays, injections and discomfort.

I have had to wear a dental dam, okay enough about it being associated with a safer sex technique, though the thought of that intrigues me. The dental dam gets me opening my mouth for as long as it takes, and trust me when I say it is extremely unpleasant, considering that I was in that same position for a good 45 minutes.

I had to continuously find ways to swallow my saliva, lest it gets even more uncomfortable than it already was. In a previous visit, the nurse had forgotten to use the suction device to suck any fluids in my mouth and I ended up having to contain them till it reached a point where I spilled it.

A very embarrassing yet relieving moment.

My next and hopefully final visit for my root canal re-treatment falls on the 28th next month, and I am certainly not looking forward to it.