The Gaping Maw

It was like 12 years ago when I paid a visit to the dentist to have one of my molars filled. I had a nasty sweet tooth and was finally getting to 'reap the benefits'of my obsession. I had awoken in the middle of the night groaning in pain, waking up the entire household. My parents had rushed me off to the dentist the moment it was morning and the dentist had resumed at the hospital.


If you've ever been to the dentist to have a screwed up tooth drilled with a small drilling machine in order to clean out the decay and make room for proper filling, you can understand what I mean when I say, it was a nightmare I never wanted to experience again.


As the the dentist drilled my rotten molar, I screamed in horror as unspeakable pain ricochetted through my entire body. Mum held me and assured me it was gonna be alrite.

I was like WT?? Alrite? This dude is drilling me to death!



As the drill bit deeper into my molar, I percieved the smell of granite, it was the smell of hot friction against my tooth as it chipped away under the intensity of the dental drill. I screamed like a banshee, the nurse and my Mum held me down tight. I sweated profusely like a condemed criminal. I thought I was gonna die.

Eventually the dentist stopped drilling, got me to rinse my mouth and proceeded to fill up the gap in my tooth. I promised myself I'd never get into a dentist chair again.

Wrong!!

12 years later the same tooth started acting up. I was like 'aw hell no!' But hell yeah I needed to go get my choppers checked.

The dentist was a nice middle aged lady. I thought because she was nice I would have it easy on my dentals. She examined me and discovered the tooth had cracked and some it had broken off (Now I know why I thought there was stone in my rice!). She did a temporary fill, then instructed me to come back in a few weeks but if it begun to pain me I should come down immediately.

A week passed. Two weeks, then the pain came. I dismissed it as just a healing process thingy until it became excruciating and kept me awake all night. The next morning I took off for the dentist from the office on permission. The tooth had no choice but to be removed.



My dentist, the nice lady got me seated in the comfortable dentists chair. somewhere inside me, the dread began to mount again. She's gonna dis-tooth me. Won't it be painful? I had heard from others that there would be anasthetics to dull the pain and that's what chilled me a bit.


She injected my gums with anasthetics and I relaxed as my mouth-flesh went limp. My dentist is a nice lady so I thought she would do it gently on me.

Wrong!!

I almost screamed when she picked something that looked like an ice pick and began to break the base of my tooth. It was so intense that I accidentally bit her finger.

I almost fainted when she picked up something that looked like a plier.
I close my eyes and practically went half dead as she yanked my skull and pried to and fro. I was still waiting for more terrible episodes when I was told it was over. I gasped in relief, my mouth region still half-dead and feeling like Sylvester Stallone's face. It felt so good to over the whole nasty toothy affair. But I felt strange; I now had a gaping maw which I had to adapt to for the next four weeks before I had a replacement. It was like being disabled, I could only eat unpleasantly with one side of my mouth for the next few days.



Word to y'all - take good care of ur frigging dentals! After my experience I understood the full meaning of 'Prevention is better than cure'!




PS. I'll soon be posting my own 'random things about me' as posted by Standtall who 'tagged' me to do my own version. Haven't forgotten!




10 Screamer(s):

Chari said...

hmmnnn...geez mayn u should write horror novels...see me shakin inunderwear...mayn...aint never officially been to a dentist n inever wana...

I know wayyyy to familiar with dental pain! I had braces and let me just tell you its no fun. You pretty much can't eat when you first get them. Then you have your monthly tightening visits. Then comes the rubbers, and retainers! Gosh so glad to be done with all that.

PS: I've tagged you too!

Unknown said...

I hate dentists but unfortunately, my dentist and I have a 'great' working relationship.

Aphrodite said...

I have been a visitor at the dentists's twice so i know dat pain u described.
Its not a place one'd want to visit twice.
pele.

exschoolnerd said...

ive never had a tooth problem and i dont pray i do cause the horro stories ive heard and read..hmmmm!!!!


hw u dey? remember me?

Naapali said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Naapali said...

Pele! Brought back horrible memories. My first experience with the purveyors of pain was my tooth extraction a few years ago. The dentist was a young, fit looking dude, graduated from my uni's dental school so I felt some collegial spirit towards him. He numbed and drilled and started to pull. I could see his muscles bulging right in front of my nose, sweat building up on his brow, dripping of his nose, is face turning crimson red. After a while he stopped to tell me this was the most difficult tooth he had ever pulled. I explained that perhaps my childhood of eating chicken feet, cow foot and oxtail had something to do with it.

Afronuts said...

@Charizaard…I did write horror stories once. Stopped cause I was too scary

@Nigeriandramaqueen…I feel you on that.

@@Pamela…Lol. Does it stop the pain?

@aphrodite…shey? Youknowwhattamsayin…

@ex-schoolnerd…Just stay off the sweety stuff and save ur teeth, aight?
LOL…I remember you. The pretty mama with good flesh on the bones. Blogger extra-ordinaire

@Naapali…well said bro. Gosh, you take ur writing skills everywhere sha! Awesome.

Parakeet said...

Are you training to become a comedian? Haven't stopped laughing...lmao! Am one of the lucky one. Never had any tooth problems. In fact never been to the dentist. My teeth must be rotten somewhere. My brother is the one who has the tooth problem. Can you believe that one day his front tooth just burst? Like that phewwwwwwww! Now he has a gap there...very ugly. Ayama!

The Activist said...

Dentist:
It wasn’t really that bad now. I have extracted 4 molars, not from sweet and chewing gum o. I happened to have impacted molars in my lower gums but the 2 upper molars had to go. They were just victims of circumstance. I did not take them out at once. Got one of the upper ones taking out in Ife and it was cool. They extracted it after taking ex-ray.

When I got to Lagos, the lower ones started acting up as usual and I had a very wrong dentist taken it out. It required a simple surgical procedure but he just went pressing me down and forcing it out. I was sick for a week, threw up for days. I went back to a far experience dentist at Federal Dental Clinic. He had to take ex-ray and took out some particles or dried stuff inside the extracted one. He took out the remaining upper and lower teeth and it was handled with care. I didn’t feel a thing

My hubby is afraid of injections (am not, I can inject mi-self) and dentist. Ask me, did he have a bad tooth/dentist experience, no. He is just running since the day he saw a dental patient making an escape from the hospital…. (lmao)

Pele o