My Teeth

A story about the opposite of bypassing

A strange revelation came to me through the most excruciating pain I have ever experienced.

I was surrounded by loving people who were doing their absolute best. A few mistakes were made - they forgot to explain things to me here or there, a few x-rays had to be redone because the one woman was having a challenging time with it another had to come take her place, a small extra flap was cut that needed extra stitches in an unspeakably painful area. But mostly, the pain was from my infection.

You see, infected teeth roots are harder to anesthetize. In fact, the act of the needle going into an “angry” area - where the infection is intense and moving around to get the anesthetic in is, for me so painful that I wished for a few minutes that I had never been born. I’ve had two natural vbac childbirths, and they were nothing compared to the pain I experienced yesterday getting some teeth pulled.

When did the problem start, you may ask. It could be located at many junctures. Perhaps it started when a boy made fun of my yellow teeth that inherited from my dad when I was a teenager. Or perhaps it was the biting words the same father spoke to my out of his own insecurity and agitation and self-loathing. Or maybe it was the constant throwing up during all three of my pregnancies, not for one trimester but for two and a half, in some cases all three. I never had cavities until after I had kids, but it could have also been hormonal changes. I could pin point one or other possibilities, but you get the idea…there might be many factors, but in the end, it’s no ones fault it happened

In Portland, where my husband did residency, my top teeth just kept getting cavities, so my posh, but affordable dentist, fully covered by insurance put in crowns on most of my top teeth. I was pleased with the upgrade. The process was uncomfortable, but the work itself wasn’t painful and the anesthesia needles were bearable. I took a benzo before I went in. For years I had two reasons to take benzos: flying and dentistry.

On the bottom, things seemed better for a while; they had been really degrading, but using Uncle Harries products they made a remarkable recovery, and where one dentist previous to that had been concerned and though I needed crowns on them too, in Portland I was told by that dentist that my bottoms looked great and there was no need to waste tooth.

Fast forward to the pandemic and something weird happened in my mouth. It was like a giant invisible parasite just started eating my teeth for lunch and pooping out areas of painful infection. I had already had one bad experience at a dentist who both made my teeth worse when I was doing effective self-healing on them in the years we’ve lived here in the midwest - and in addiction to damaging my teeth by continuing to pick at areas I was healing with clay after I told her to stop, I got weird vibes and disturbingly pat answers about my questions related to xrays and fluoride. I already have significant trauma around being gaslighted from my family of origin, who of course didn’t mean to do it - they were just on their own reality - one in which everything was my fault. I worked for many years to trust myself when I have a strong intuitive sense of what is what - or at least that something is asking for my attention to look deeper or reassess how I am in relation to this thing I am feeling/perceiving. During the years of 2020 - on up to the present in some circles, but I think less so as more awaken, it seemed that everyone who wasn’t on board certain trains was gaslighted in the worst ways - by appealing to fear, guilt or shame if we didn’t conform.

I didn’t conform. I also didn’t go to the dentist. I tried wearing a mask once and it was very traumatic for me. So I didn’t feel that I could do that. I also felt strong that I did not want to put my bodily welfare in the hands of people who had already proven disrespect for my voice and who almost assuredly would think terribly things about me for being “one of those,” = antivaxxer etc - the term itself having been oddly redefined to include anyone who wasn’t on board with mandates that clearly violated the principles of the Neuremberg Code, and when people called that out, they falsely claimed it wasn’t experimental because it was EUA approved (even though such approvals by definition are experimental) or on the basis that the studies were just as rigorous as a vaccine that was studied for longer, but simply powered to do so in a fast fashion by funding - even though the studies themselves had some highly concerning features to them along with lacking the design to even look at various important topics, including biodistribution and the potential for genetic integration. There was no realistic way, in the minds of those of us who were already curious about such topics before it came out, for the vaccine to prevent transmission. So guilt tripping us about Grandma or Grandpa (all the while contributing to their deaths in nursing homes by treating them the wrong way or not at all,) or mandating them had no public health basis - threatening peoples job security, their ability to feed their families was heartless and cruel - not compassionate. And if they’d adequately studied the lipid cocktail of genetic whispers, they would have known that up front, instead of backpedaling later.

All this to say I felt too uncomfortable to go to the dentist when, in more rational times (whether my own rational or society’s) it would have been the thing to common sense thing to do. I truly did not feel safe to go, even as invisible tiny processes were eating and infecting my teeth.

By last summer, things had shifted away from the virus and it’s correlate in this story, the vaccine. Nearly everyone stopped wearing masks, except for a few holdouts who seemed to have gotten to so used to them it was like a security blanket. My mouth wasn’t getting better - it was getting worse. I decided the time had come to find a way to get some care, even if I had to pay out of pocket to find someone I trusted, as our insurance options were limited.

I found a biological dentist, alongside the credentials one would expect of someone entrusted with a messed up mouth, who is about an hour and a half from home. We got the ball rolling. And while the ball briefly stalled for various factors, my mouth got a lot worse. I even took antibiotics didn’t do much. The only thing that seemed to tangible help was wormwood powder in warm water. It got me through a few really tough days til I could get the naughty teeth extracted.

I assumed that the worst was over and it would be a fairly easy process - small pain with needs, no pain, just sensation with the procedure. I didn’t bother was a benzo.

I was so mistaken! So was the dentist, in fact. I was told that after the excruciating needles, which were so because of the infection that I wouldn’t feel any pain with actual pulling of teeth. They used the maximum anesthetic (I used to take the lowerst dose) and I was still in the kind of pain that in other circumstances would be considered torture. In spite of very infrequent use of any drugs, I am a much faster metabolizer now than I was in the past.

The kind of pain that has wishing you had never been born. The kind of pain in which annihilation seems appealing simply to get out of pain, not for a lack of love for life.

And yet…I was in the hands of extremely loving people. My dentist wasn’t the one I’ve talked to at the practice previously, but we hit it off immediately. I commented to my husband, who lovingly accompanied me and endured what I know is probably hardest for a man to watch - the woman he loves going through what I was going through - that this dentist was basically like us if we were dentists. When the vibe needed lifting after a difficult part of the process - what with my bone being fused to the roots with the infection - she danced right next to my chair to get herself in her good place. When I told her a specific instrument needed a “foof,” - my word for a clearing, she totally got it. When I screamed and cried, by the end of a very long day, a loving, wonderful hygeinist came in and wrapped her arms around me and offered me her soup recipe for later. When I was having a trauma response and asked for Rescue Remedy, the other hygeinist went to ask the other dentist - the one I'd consulted with before already - and she came back with an unopened bottle of it for me.

In the end, when enough of my bone was sawed away to allow the extraction, and even after we thought we got it, there were more roots to dig out in the areas that were infected, and everyone had gone home except the people working on me because it turned out to be harder on all of us than we thought, there was love in the room. Real, authentic care. They even sent me home with Arnica in addition to Ibprofin. The Arnica helped more with the pain after.

For my whole life, as long as I can remember, as much as rationally I know it isn’t true, when things happen that hurt deeply, intensely, I’ve taken it personally. My unconscious conclusion has been, there must be something wrong with me - else why would this be happening to me?

In that room where I experienced torture level pain, it was no ones fault, not even mine. I am told that I released some pretty deep stuff with those teeth and all that went along with it. I also came to the conclusion in a way I can feel as real that, for real, when I experience pain - no matter how incredibly painful it is, it’s not because there’s something wrong with me.

No one thought anything was anyone else’s fault. Yes, it a long, hard, painful day. But no one was to blame. It just was. I asked if the other hyngeinists dance. It turns out the they do. So may next time we’ll have a dance party. As I walked out, I told the dentist, “Hopefully next time there be less crying and more dancing.”