I've been to see the dentist today to have a tooth extracted. I should actually say to have the remains of a tooth taken out.

The story of this adventure goes back two years when I had root canals on my two bottom right molars. Both had to have buildups and crowns, one porcelain and one gold.

Spin forward to December 2006. A college age girl in our church made homemade caramels and offered me one. I stuck it in the right side of my mouth and began to chew. I felt something pulling. The porcelain crown didn't come off but pained me for one or two days until I ground my teeth to try to push it back onto the tooth. It worked, or so I thought.

Now I'm not one that flosses regularly (the real reason for all my dental agony, I'm sure) but the dental hygienist had scared me at one cleaning when she said the ominous words, "If your gums don't begin to heal from gingivitis, we may have to send you to see someone for gum restoration." Ack!

I determined that I was going to begin flossing every day. When I put the floss between the two molars that had the crowns and tried to take it back out, the porcelain crown went flying along with a few tooth fragments. Oddly enough, the buildup amalgum stayed in place.

Two weeks went by and I was scheduled for another cleaning. The hygienist, without any effort at all, lifted the buildup off the tooth, exposing the rootless part of the tooth and a ridge of tooth that remained.

Today was the appointment to extract all that remaining tooth. You must understand before I go any farther that I am an enormous chicken heart when it comes to dentistry. The female dentist I go to has done a lot to help me over much of my fear. At least I haven't subconsciously spaced out two appointments or almost fainted in the reception area while waiting for a cleaning like I did with the last dentist we used to do business with.

Even so, with this extraction I requested the nitrous oxide. Have you ever noticed how wonderful that stuff makes you feel?

"You're going to feel a little pressure now," the good dentist says, and I feel like saying, "That's okay. Do whatever you want. I'm mellow."

Before I became a teetotaler (uh, that means I don't drink anymore . . .nada) I drank. Nitrous oxide makes you feel almost the same way.

The tooth came out so quickly that my husband waiting for me in the reception area couldn't believe it. The novacaine took about five hours to completely wear off.

About an hour ago we searched the house high and low for ibuprofen, the recommended pain reliever. Do you think we had any? No.

A trip to the discount store and seven dollars later I have fifty tablets at my disposal. I already took two and the pain has lessened considerably.

Now to try to find some soft food that I can have. My stomach is rumbling in a not-so-friendly way that it feels neglected.

Oh, the good news about all of this? Because the crown was only in my mouth for two years, the dentist extracted my tooth free of charge. Our insurance company had done something crazy with our billing and we ended up having at least fifty dollars credit built up with the dentist office, so even the nitrous oxide was free.

Have you had any experiences with dentists that you want to share? Leave a comment about it.

Until tomorrow.