I spent my half-day off work at the dentist’s office on Friday. To make matters worse , I was there to get a filling. To make matters even more worse, I was in excruciating pain.

Yes folks, Matthew here was told he had his first cavity. My dentist, Dr. Chan, said that she has been “monitoring” that tooth (the top right innermost molar) for several checkups and that she is confident that I would need a filling.

You had no idea how I felt after receiving the news. It was like I had a dental criminal record. It was like I was broken in, and germ burglars have finally got its way in. My doctor dared to tease me if I have been lying.

There’s this stupid Cantonese saying that your teeth will fall out if you are telling lies.

I wanted to tell Dr. Chan that my teeth aren’t falling out, they’re just decaying dammit. I held my comments back, since she is in fact going to do some dental surgery on me, and I will give her the benefit of the doubt that she’s seems CBC.

So it as time for the filling and she inspected the tooth again— just to be sure that my poor tooth requires a filling. She used that dental metal hook and poked the molar.

“Yep, cavity”, she said.

Please. Stop. Rubbing it in.

She gave me a small anaesthetic on my gums close to the “dirty” molar and one on the roof of my mouth. The injection to the gums was completely painless, but the one to the roof was painful. I asked her why, and she says that it has to do with the fact that there was more tissue to give on the gums, rather than the roof of your mouth.

I waited a couple minutes for the chemicals to get working, and then it was time. She took this small little driller that resembled some of my dad’s Craftsman garage tools.

So creepy.

She told me that I might experience pain during the surgery, but nothing unbearable. I personally was confident that it would be a breeze, after going through two years of braces, and having my four wisdom teeth removed without any pain (mind you, I had anaesthetic and laughing gas).

At first it was alright, and I just hear serious drilling noises. But further into the surgery, she really applied pressure into the molar, and I was really starting to develop a bit of pain, then more, and then more.

Then I realized, what exactly is unbearable? Doesn’t that really vary from person to person? So I sucked it up like the “tough” man that I am, but I continued to express myself with my eyes. I had them wide open and my eyebrows as raised as much as it can go.

She did not get my hint and did not say anything.

There was more drilling. Finally, she said it was done, and later realized that she needed to drill some more. You guys just won’t understand how sharp and isolated the pain was. It was nothing I have ever experienced. The sounds of drilling certainly didn’t help.

Tzzzzzz. Tzzzzzz. Tzzzzzz.

It was then all over. She applied the filling stuff, and her assistant used this orange gun to heated it up the filling paste to harden it.

I got up from the chair, and realized that my thighs and back was completely damp from my nervous sweat.

After the surgery, I decided I would have some fun with my mouth while the anaesthetic was still doing its thing. It’s so weird to have one side of my mouth fine, while the other is completely asleep. It feels like its swollen, when in reality it’s not.

I decided to be stupid later and tested to see how far I can bite the inside of my cheek and not feel anything. Obviously, I didn’t go all out and bit myself— but I will tell you that I felt virtually nothing. I swear, maybe Dr. Chan didn’t use precision when poking me with the needle. Argh.

Note: I did not have the luxury to “play” with my inner cheeks after removing my wisdom teeth, since I was completely drowsy and totally sick after the surgery.

For the remainder of the day, I sporadically recalled the pain and the disturbing drilling that took place that afternoon.

I’m completely fine now, so need not worry.

Dental Caries - [wikipedia.org]