Thursday, April 9, 2009
My parents were too poor to take us young'uns to the dentist when I was growing up--as a matter of fact, they didn't take us to a doctor period unless you were in a world of hurt. But when I was about 12, I was in a world of hurt with an impacted molar, so they took me to Dr. McLeod, the general practioner in McLain. The doctor's office was in DeShazo's drugstore.
Dr. McLeod looked in my mouth and said "That tooth has to come out." He put me in what looked like a barber chair and told my parents to each take an arm and hold me down. He had an assistant put me in a choke hold-vise like grip to keep my head from moving. Then he said "open wide" and went after the tooth with a pair of pliers. I was moaning and trying to holler. The tooth broke off then he had to make another go at it. Jeeze! No novacaine or a slug of gin or anything to put me out. With that horrific memory, I grew up and neglected my teeth from fear of dentists.
When I was an adult I went to a dentist in a town 20 miles away--I'll call him Dr. Doddy. I figured the tooth just need a filling, but Dr. Doddy said "open wide" then said "that tooth hs to come out." I said how about Novocaine? He said by the time he had stuck me with the needles he could already have had the tooth out; then proceeded to yank it out. The doctor didn't have an X-ray machine in his office, and I don't believe he had the materials in his office to fill teeth, or had Novocaine or anything. All he had was a tray with extraction tools on it.
Later I would see people in town with reasonable teeth except for one missing along the row and thought "They've been to Dr. Yank 'Em." Fortunately about 30 years ago someone recommended Dr. Charles Greer in Hattiesburg. He X-rayed, filled some, root canal-ed some, and crowned a few and fixed my teeth. Well, Last week I did a stupid thing; I crunched down on a Brazil nut and felt one of those old fillings crack and give way. But it seemed alright until yesterday when a chunk of filling fell out when I crunched on some chow mein noodles.
I phoned the office and was told they'd try to work me in on Monday. I whined it had hurt all night, so I was told to come in at 2pm today and they'd work me in. Dr. Greer X-rayed the suspect tooth and saw nothing amiss. He was unable to find where the filling had fallen out from. I looked at the X-ray myself, and it did look OK. Meanwhile I was on a pink cloud of nitrous oxide. He finally braced up the tooth next to the suspect one with some filling. Cost, $115.00.
So it wasn't a stupid Brazil nut that caused the problem, it was stupid me for crunching down on it.
susil