On Saturday I was sitting outside of class, idly running my tongue over my teeth as my mind wandered over the mile-long to-do-list in my head when I felt something odd on my lower canine that gave me pause. It was smooth.

Shouldn’t teeth be smooth you ask? Well, in that canine’s case, no it shouldn’t. You see I had a filling put in that tooth and ever since then it’s felt sort of rough on the lingual (tongue) side. However, I noticed that it was feeling smooth now which alarmed me. Did I loose a filling somehow? On Sunday evening I finally broke down and asked my mom, who has had plenty of experience with fillings, teeth pulling, root canals, and what not. She asked me if I had trouble eating, if I felt pain or discomfort in anyway, and as I mentioned in a previous post, my teeth have not been bothering me. When I told her this she just laughed and said I was being paranoid. I wondered how she could be so sure a filling hadn’t come out and she told me one story of hers:

When a filling comes out you know it and you feel it as it comes out. In my case one time the filled chipped the tooth badly when coming out. So instead of getting refilled, the dentist had to pull out the tooth. When a filling comes out it feels like there was an open door in your mouth. Everything cold, everything hot, bothers it and sets it tingling in a very uncomfortable, almost painful way. And since it’s because your nerves are exposed it’s not surprising. I remember walking into Burger King that time, and asking to just have a piece of bread to use for my filling because I had to catch a bus to get across town to my dentist. Not fun.

In her case, she had found a sympathizing cashier at Burger King who had gone through the same pain and her “temporary dental repair” was a piece of bread packed around the tooth to prevent further pain while she got across town and waited in a waiting room for the dentist. When I asked if she had ever heard of Dentemp OS she gave me a blank look. Dentemp is a an FDA approved, over the counter dental cement that can be used to provide quick relief and repair for up to sixty minutes. Plenty of time to get in to see a dentist, or at least get home and lock yourself in. It can also be used to temporarily fix loose crowns as well.

In the words of my mother:

Too bad that wasn’t around when I needed it!

I’m just glad that I hadn’t lost a filling and was just being paranoid. Then again, I’m always paranoid when it comes to my teeth now!