Adventures in oral hygiene

I've found, as I get older, that in many facets of my life, I'm just a straight-up anomaly. I like plucking my eyebrows. I usually relish the opportunity to clean up a really messy room. And, perhaps most strangely, I don't fear the dentist.

I mean, it's not like I look forward to my appointments for weeks and eagerly check off the intermediate days on a calendar or anything. But I just don't have any aversion to it. It probably helps that, crooked bottom teeth aside, my dental experiences have been pretty much all positive. No braces. No root canals. No cavities, even. When I was a kid, going to the dentist was actually kind of a positive experience. The dental hygienist would poke around for awhile, which was not so fun, but then she'd let me pick a toothpaste flavor and would brush my teeth for me with that weird whirring suction stick thingy, after which I'd get a free toothbrush, a trinket (comparable in quality to the prize in a Cracker Jack box), and a compliment on how my pearly whites were, well, pearly white.

As I've grown older, I don't really look forward to the dentist (No more prizes?! What is that all about?!), but I tend to view it with a detached kind of neutrality. I go, I get my teeth cleaned, I leave, and I repeat the process in six months. Whatever.

However, my most recent foray into the world of oral hygiene was different than the others, in that I actually had a problem. My gums around my wisdom teeth had been swollen for a few days, and despite my fervent wishes that they would just go back to normal on their own, they did not. So yesterday I headed in to my regular dentist appointment and mentioned to the hygienist in what I hoped was a casual way:

"You know, I'm glad I could get an appointment for today. I have a little swelling around my gums."

"Oh, really?" she said. "Let's take a look."

I got into the chair and opened wide. She took out the least-friendly looking metal instrument on the tray and held it as she peered inside.

"Oh, yeah, you do have some swelling there," she said. She gingerly poked around with the metal thing before adding, "Holy moly."

At that point, I knew all was lost. It's never a good sign when your dental hygienist, who has presumably seen quite a few oral maladies, starts throwing around phrases like "holy moly."

So after my check-up I was scheduled to return this morning to get all the bacteria scraped out from under my gums. Sounds like fun, right?

Well, yes and no. The Novocaine shots (all three of them) weren't so bad, but ever since my medical drama in February (three stitches above my eyebrow, three on my eyelid, and about eight painful anesthesia shots preceding them) I've adopted a more blasé attitude toward giant sharp poking implements in the immediate vicinity of my face. The gum-scraping itself wasn't all that awful either, given the effectiveness of the shots, although the scraping instruments kept coming out of my mouth looking considerably gorier than they had when they went in. At any rate, the whole thing was over in about twenty-five minutes, and this includes the serious post-procedure talk I got about proper flossing to prevent future occurrences like this.

The Novocaine, however, has yet to wear off.

Granted, it's only been about an hour since I left the dentist. Though now that I mention it, I seem to have regained some control of my tongue, and I can smile again without having one side of my mouth be way more into it than the other. Bizarrely enough, though, my chin and left ear appear to be pretty numb still. It's a bit frustrating, as I've had an itch on my chin for the past twenty minutes and scratching is pretty non-effective, since I can't feel it. I don't even know how it's even medically possible to be able to feel the itch and not the scratching, but there you go.

It hasn't been all bad, though. Having the entire left side of my face numb from my ear to my chin has actually been, to me at least, pretty entertaining. (I know, small amusement for small minds.) It began in the dentist's office when I tried to rinse out my mouth. Never having had Novocaine injections before, I severely overestimated my ability to manipulate my lips and tongue and, instead of neatly spitting the water into the sink, managed instead to dribble it down my chin. A second attempt proved just as fruitless, possibly even more so, since I happened to catch a look at my face in the mirror above the sink as I was attempting to swish the water around in my mouth. I looked rather like Cletus the slack-jawed yokel and half-spit the water out in laughter while the rest of it trickled down my face again and ended up (mostly) in the sink. Luckily no one was around to witness this incredibly graceful display, and I managed (with great effort) to hold myself together for the remainder of my time in the dentist's office, speaking almost normally.

Once I got out of there, however, all bets (along with my dignity) were off, and I became a lithping mathine thomewhat resthembling Thindy Brady. My teeth felt like they were about twice their normal size and five times their regular density, my face somehow felt like it was simultaneously made out of Play-Doh and a balloon, and I kept almost choking on my own tongue. By all accounts, it was not a very proud moment for me, but it was just so darn funny.

I got home and decided that it would be a good idea to take some ibuprofen before the numbness wore off, since having someone digging around in your gums is bound to result in some soreness later on. Drinking water proved a challenge, but that was easily solved by getting a drinking straw into the mix. Swallowing the ibuprofen was a little tougher, as I actually had to throw my head all the way back and let gravity do most of the work (whilst trying to prevent it from working on my tongue, which I was still apt to accidentally attempt to swallow). And now, an hour-and-a-half post-dentist (I took some time off in the middle of this post to google Harry Potter), I've got some feeling back in the very tip of my tongue but am definitely still numb everywhere else. The dentist said it would last about an hour but that it was different for everyone. I wonder how long it will last for me. It's been funny and everything, but I'd really like to eat some lunch without the danger of accidentally biting off a huge chunk of my own tongue.

The moral of the story here is, I suppose, is that if you don't mind giant syringes in your mouth, Novocaine is pretty amusing. If you'd rather avoid needles altogether, though, do yourself a favor and floss.