i have one cavity in my whole mouth and it’s a doozy. i got it when i was something like 7 or 8 years old after i became convinced i couldn’t get cavities and stopped brushing my teeth and lied to my mom whenever asked. the end result of that fantasy was a mouthful of cavities, but – hurray – all were baby teeth except this one molar. so i eventually got fresh, new teeth and a great early lesson in the importance of good dental hygiene.

the tooth has given me all sort of problems over the years. i think another cavity got under the filling which fell out, then i had to have a crown and then, for reasons i can’t recall, a second crown. more than one dentist over the years has told me i would eventually need a root canal, but i was still surprised after my last dentist visit to find the time was now since i haven’t had any pain or tooth sensitivity. in hindsight i now know the slight sensitive sinus was not actually due to allergies but an abscess infection. yuck.

so i got scheduled for endodontic therapy and here you can see three endodontic cleaning files in the root canals. as it turns out the worst part of the root canal is the painful shot of local anesthetic at the beginning. the sound and smell of the drilling and the sound and feeling of the filing was more disconcerting than painful.

oh, and I AM NOT GOING TO GOOGLE THE LIKELIHOOD OF A ABSCESS INFECTION SPREADING TO THE BRAIN. NOOOOOOOPE.