Wednesday, August 19, 2009

My very first filling

I got the first filling of my life last night. I was at the dentist in July for a cleaning and they had been keeping an eye on a spot on my tooth for a year or so and decided it should be filled, even though it was still a fairly small cavity. I am glad that I am 28 and have never had a cavity. I think I owe that fact to good genetics more than anything. I have been told that some people have more acidic saliva and get more cavities and some people have more alkaline saliva and tend to get more tartar buildup. I think I fall into the second category. I have always brushed my teeth regularly but have have been a sporadic flosser. I usually will floss for a few weeks after I go for a cleaning, then usually only when I get something stuck in my teeth that I can't get out with a toothbrush. I should really floss regularly, but I suppose I just get lazy with it.

My filling wasn't a terrible experience. I have only ever been frozen in my mouth one other time and that was to get my wisdom teeth out. I had all four extracted at once, but they were all through the gums so it wasn't dental surgery and I didn't swell or bruise. I had quite a positive experience with my wisdom teeth removal. But it was quite weird having my entire mouth frozen. My filling was in a top tooth on the right side. When they freeze the top of your mouth it is much more localized than on the bottom. The dentist even used some gel to numb the gums before she stuck me with the needle so it wasn't too bad at all. I felt quite numb so she started drilling. Suddenly I felt something that felt like a bad sensitive tooth attack. It wasn't unbearable but I didn't think I should feel anything so I made a grunt (the best I could do with the rubber shield and apparatus to hold my mouth open). She added a little more freezing and gave me a few minutes for it to take effect. Then back to the drilling. I would say it felt the same, like a bad sensitive tooth while she was drilling. I just assumed that maybe that's what it was supposed to feel like since she had already given me two shots of freezing. So I wrung my hands and endured a few minutes of the drilling then the filling part was a piece of cake. I honestly thought I might feel more pain once the freezing came out last night but it felt just fine. I have found today that every now and again I get a little pang of sensitive tooth pain, but it is fairly minor. My jaw is a little sore from having it propped open, and my gum is a little tender where I got the needle. I hope that I am able to take good care of my teeth so that I will never need any major dental work.

On another note, we are going to try one of our kohlrabies for supper. We grew tomatoes, kohlrabies and cilantro this year. We only managed to get four kohlrabies to actually grow. Two have gotten to a reasonable size and two are quite small yet. We have a good crop of tomatoes but they are all still very green, and the cilantro is two feet tall. We have used some in our cooking throughout the summer. I love cilantro! I think next year we should try a few different herbs. Maybe some basil or oregano.

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