Trip to the Dentist

I went to the dentist last night after work to have one of my older cavities re-filled. I had no idea it needed to be done until I went for my 6 month cleaning back in August, when my dentist did the "cavity check" with his "scraper". Now, I'm not sure if any of you people have ever had a cavity before, I know that my boyfriend Todd and my brother have never had a cavity, but I will tell you this, when they find a cavity and they test the tooth to make sure it is in fact a cavity, it HURTS! It only hurts for a split second, but nonetheless, it can make you squirm. And last night, squirming was my specialty. My dentist gave me 1 shot of novacaine (also called Procaine) , which is all I or anyone needs for that matter. He left the room to see some other paitents so the novocain could kick in and about 10 minutes later (it felt like an hour!) he came back into the room and started to drill. He tells me everytime even though I already know, but if I ever feel anything, I should raise my hand. So, he started to drill my tooth and almost immediatly, I raised my hand and shrugged my shoulders. I could still feel the drill. I was going to see if I could stick it out for a few seconds longer and try and ignore the pain, but I couldn't do it. So, my dentist gave me another shot of novacaine , let it do it's job and about another 10 minutes or so later, he was back again. He started to drill a second time and it was no different. I thought it was really odd at this point considering I could barely feel the left side of my mouth. So, trying a 3rd time with another 3 shots of novocain in different places. Now I couldn't even feel my tongue! I thought that if I could stil feel it this time, something was wrong. My dentist started to drill and I still shrugged my shoulders and raised my hand! So, the next step was to take some x-rays of that area to see what was going on. ABout 15 minutes later or so, my dentist came back and looked closely at the x-rays. It turned out that the cavity in my tooth was touching the nerve in the root of the tooth. Can we say "ouch"!? So, I asked him what that meant was going to happen. He told me that he was going to fill the tooth with a medicated filling (sort of like putting neosphorine on a cut) and we'll see what happens. If it starts to hurt eventually, I most likely will need a root canal. Just the words "root canal" are just scary. A friend of mine has had a few and she says that they are not as bad as it sounds. I'm not so sure about that though! Basically what happens is they give you novocain just like they do when you have a cavity, they go to the root of your tooth, they take the nerve out (which is in the root and pretty much kills the tooth) and put a "cap" on the tooth. To me, it does not sound like a pleasant visit to the dentist, and hopefully I won't have to have a root canal at all.