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Monday, March 20, 2006

Cavitation

Dentist: So why didn't you come sooner? At the very least, you should be getting your teeth cleaned once a year.

Well, when you work 12 hour days 6 days a week, it's hard to find time to even do your laundry, let alone go see a dentist.

I found out the other day that the hole in my molar wasn't the result of part of the epoxy filling coming out, but due to a new cavity. A cavity that was so friggin' deep that had I waited another few weeks, I would have needed a root canal before the dentist could fix it. So that's what I get for not seeing a dentist in... 4 years.

Anyway, point being that my tooth decay is so miserably gigantic that it will require a 2-stage fix. First stage consisted of drilling out the decay and placing a temporary medicated filling. I return in 3 weeks for stage 2, where through the magic of modern dentistry, my tooth receives a brand new filling and all the badness goes away. Unfortunately, this 2 stage procedure also means that I get stuck with the needle two times.

But more interestingly, this medicated temporary filling that's in my tooth now uses oil of clove as the main active ingredient. Per the dental hygienest, this technology has been around since the time of the ancient Egyptians. The clove oil anesthetizes the nerves while simultaneous acting as an anti-bacterial agent to keep my cavity from getting infected. By keeping this in my tooth or 3 weeks, it destroys the sensitivity of the nerves in my tooth, and I avoid a root canal.

And I guess it's working since I don't have much pain. As an unexpected bonus, the filling acts like it has some time-release mechanism to release a little bit of the clove oil every so often. So every once in awhile, I get a taste of sweetened clove in my mouth, which isn't all that much different than the lingering taste after eating a gingerbread cookie.

I bet there's some way to utilize this concept to place a semi-permanet reservoir of breath freshener in someone's mouth. But I can't imagine anybody real interested in getting their teeth drilled out for it. Unless you incorporate diamonds. Then maybe the rap crowd might be interested in the concept of getting some bling in the teeth as well as fresh breath.