Life Lesson/Dental Health
My Dental Woes Became a Course in Mini Miracles
Need a root canal? Find an Endodontist with a GentleWave machine. Your concerns will be over and your mouth will be grateful.
I was savoring a patch of sun-ripened blackberries and conversing with a Billy goat on the other side of the fence last week. A seed traveled to my upper gum and I used my finger to move it down.
Wait, it wasn’t moving. I was touching a swelling, not a seed. I probed some more, confirming a dreaded self-diagnosis. “Oh no Billy, I have an abscess in my mouth!” He looked at me with woeful eyes and bleated out a sympathetic baaaaah as well. Which I interpreted as “Call your dentist!” I took his advice, striding back home to my phone, unable to stop worrying my tongue upward.
I live on an island with one overworked dentist. Dental issues mean a long ferry wait in line, trip to the mainland. And in my case, a journey to the city to visit the Integrative Dentists I have been seeing for forty years. These dentists specialize in biological techniques which support our immune systems.
I drove into the city, occasionally mulling over worst-case scenarios like Tom Hanks in the movie Cast Away. He was stranded on a deserted island after an ocean plane crash killed everyone on board. He had an abscessed tooth and extracted it on his own using a system of weight and pulley. He also passed out from the shock.
Another gruesome memory surfaced of walking past a man suffering on a dirty mat on the streets of Mumbai, India. He was waiting for the ‘dentist’ to perform an extraction with a set of filthy pliers he had already used on several other people. I watched in horror as the poor guy cranked his mouth open, screaming in pain as pliers grabbed hold of his tooth, twisting it back and forth, inducing further agony, until popping out in a gush of blood.
I realized I was making assumptions and indulging in shadowy thoughts which could negatively affect my mindset. By the time I finished a too…
