Root canal

It turns out root canal isn't so bad.
But i say that with the caveat:  it's not that bad if you had excruciating pain prior to the root canal.  The good thing is that i can sort of read xrays, and some symptoms led me to believe something was wrong but i thought it was something else because i'm neither a dentist nor an endodontist.  (oh, and i was repeatedly told it was just sensitivity that won't ever go away and i would need to use sensitive toothpaste).
If you look at my xrays (this is post rubbery post placement with the clamp still on my tooth), you'll notice that around the bottom of the root it looks weird.  This is fluid accumulation, usually a sign of infection.  This went with my weird, unable to locate exact source, random, flare up aches that i would feel in that area periodically.  So off to the endo i go.  Three drillings and fillings with some rubber tubes in my roots later with medication added to prevent infection and some pretty bad aches that got me on antibiotics, and then also an antifungal (which is allegedly the a-bomb of mouth/tooth issues) i realized some things: i'm a wuss about my teeth (the doc had to give me some tough love to get me to stop calling about the pain), teeth are scary, i don't want the pain that usually brings one to a root canal, and that Dr. Vettraino is not only a lovely woman with a beautiful Italian accent, but she is patient and explanatory and wonderful.

What i thought was neat in all this was the process at the end.  So the xray shows the rubber tips they place down into the four roots of the molar.  They are specially treated and the tooth is rinsed out with chlorhexidine (the napalm of antibacterials).  The stuff above it is the temporary filling material that will later be removed by my dentist for a permanent one, and a crown is slapped on top of the whole thing.

The other photo is me braving a photo of myself with a giant hole in my tooth.  If you know me at all, you know i can't handle two things in medicine: bones and teeth.