Root Canal

Jacob's tooth saga continues . . .

Last Tuesday we went into our dentist for a routine follow-up from the baseball accident which resulted in Jacob's front tooth being knocked out last April. We've done this several times so thought it would be routine. Unfortunately the x-rays showed that the body was attacking the tooth like it would a foreign object so we were sent to a specialist. We saw him on Thursday and he confirmed that the nerve had died and the body was attacking the tooth so he strongly recommended a root canal. The good news: the tooth has not changed color as you might expect and the bone had attached to it so it is stable, despite being dead inside.

I took Jacob to his appointment this morning not knowing what to expect. My Mom counseled me to brace myself (I'm not the best with blood and people I love being in pain, etc). She said when she had a root canal, the dental assistant had to leave the room because she was nauseous. Oh Yea! Fortunately, dental technology has come a long way in the last 40 years so it was pretty harmless. The worst part was at the beginning when they gave him three shots of novocain to deaden the area. But after that, they drilled a small hole, stuck small files inside to clean it out, flushed it with saline, inserted a temporary filling that looked like a white toothpick, and put some white putty over the hole to seal it off. We were done in 30 minutes and the dentist said Jacob did better than 96.6% of all adults who have this done. We waited for an hour for the putty to harden, had some lunch, and took him back to school. We go back to our regular dentist tomorrow for the permanent filling and return to the specialist in three months for more x-rays. The goal is five years - if we make it that long, there is a very good chance he'll keep the tooth for many, many years to come. Since my Mom's root canal tooth is still in place and working great for her, I feel pretty confident. Thank goodness strong, healthy teeth run in both David's and my families!