Beneath the Drill

The title sounds freaky, but in fact the procedure was not bad. This afternoon was my dental appointment. I had an odd feeling when I came to the office and one of the signs outside had a circle, part of which formed a smile. Cute.

On this visit I had X-rays of my teeth done. The technician noticed something odd from one of my molars. The oddity turned out to be a cavity forming in an obscure part of the molar, where brushing would not reach. As I came early, and had some time, it was decided to fill the cavity.

The procedure used tools I do not remember seeing before. One was a tool that had what looked like odd pieces of metal along its length: It was an amalgam carrier, used to insert the filling. And something with a thumb screw was attached to the inside of my mouth: That was a matrix retainer, which kept the filling in place while it was being shaped and then zapped by the ultraviolet light of the curing lamp.

It was a good thing that I took half a sick day for this. I would not want to return to work with a numb face.