Yesterday, I had to go to the dentist for a filling. I had a cavity between two teeth. It was a very tiny cavity that showed up on my last set of X-rays (taken earlier this month). Fillings are theoretically not much fun, but my dentist is awesome as a dentist and she’s a friend to boot, so there’s actually some fun to going to her office no matter the reason.

I’d scheduled the appointment to be next to my DH’s regular cleaning, so we could both go out to lunch with dentist-friend and her husband (who is also her office manager) afterward. So, DH and I arrived around the same time (albeit in separate cars as we had separate destinations afterward). I got called in first so they could start getting me numb.

Those who have been following my tweets know that I’m sick. I’d warned my dentist that I was sick, and she said so long as I felt like I could lay back on the chair and still be able to breathe, I was okay to come in. I was able to do that, but it also meant I gagged easier than normal, so they couldn’t use the little shieldy thing on my mouth and instead had to use a suction.

Oh, but I’m getting ahead of myself. My dentist has a cool new (well, new to me because she didn’t have it for my last cavity…which admittedly was at least a couple years ago) thingy for delivering anesthesia. It’s a wand that has a computer sending the anesthetic instead of an injection. It was AWESOME. You know how normally, even with topical put on first, you get this pinch and then it feels like your capillaries are exploding or something? None of that. If she hadn’t told me she was numbing me and that I might feel a pinch, I wouldn’t have felt anything. Well, my dentist also knows that redheads need more anesthesia, so she gave me an extra dose, which is standard procedure for a filling for me with her. (And honestly, it explains in part why I hated my fillings as a kid so much and went into a bit of emotional shock afterward, usually remedied by an hour of Wolfenstein 3D…I was in pain, but I thought it was normal. I didn’t know to ask for more anesthetic, and I bet I needed it then, too.) Then they left me alone for a bit before coming back to start the process. Buzz buzz buzz…drill drill drill…OUCH! I made an ouch noise, and my dentist immediately pulled out and stopped and dosed me up again. A few minutes go by and then she comes back…drill drill drill, buzz buzz buzz…switch to different drilly thing…buzz buzz OUCH! That time it was a worse ouch, too…I almost cried. Well, my dentist (being awesome) stopped again, dosed me again, and said that if it didn’t work this time, they’d just put in a temporary filling for what had happened already and have me come back in a couple of weeks, as her guess was that my cold was causing the anesthetic to wear off and/or not work even more than normal. But, sure enough, not long after that, I was right as rain, couldn’t feel a thing, and we were done before I knew it.

She took pictures of the cavity, and it was really cool to look at. So, the cavity looked really small on the outside, but inside, it was a bigger hole (another possible reason that it hurt more than anticipated). It was on a tooth that isn’t that big to begin with, and it had formed a little burrow inside my tooth. I can’t get over how awesome it was to see my tooth’s insides on the big screen. I could have watched on the TV while she was doing it, but I’m not that brave, and I do know that I have excellent pain imagination. That is, if you tell me I’m going to hurt, I will hurt, whether you actually hurt me or not. So, if I’m watching stuff happen, it will hurt me more than it would if I don’t watch.

Anyways, I’m wondering if the build-up of cold meds in my system for the past couple of days (I hadn’t taken any for 12 hours before my appointment just in case) had caused me to be running faster than normal, so my system processed the anesthetic faster or something. I honestly think it was wearing off faster than normal. My appointment was done at noon, and I was completely un-numb by 3pm. Even when I’ve had the normal-for-me dose, I remember being numb for several hours after, and I had twice the normal-for-me dose (4x the normal dose) before I was done. I had a lopsided smile at lunch, and had to eat and drink with the other side of my mouth.

After our appointments, we got to pick prizes from the prize cabinet. I got a little thingie for my dear Moo, and my DH got a pocket tape measure (which will come in handy, I think!). We had a really fun lunch, too, as always. Today, I have a nifty filling that I can feel with my tongue.