Another reason to floss

This is me Saturday night.

I woke up Thursday morning with a little pain around my bottom wisdom tooth. I've had mild throbbing there a few times before and thought this time that the thing had decided to try to grow in again (as it is only slightly peeking through the gum). By Friday I was taking Paracetemol (European version of Tylenol) and by Friday night it was Codeine and whiskey for the pain and to supress the tears. Not one to miss out on the Tori Amos event of the season, I continued on the stuff all day Saturday (paracetemol, not the whiskey) so that I could make the concert in the evening. This morning however, the swelling became worse and so I made an appointment at SOS Dentaire - a private dental clinic that is open on Sundays. The clinic seemed fine enough - in a nice location of the city. Though there was an older sign on the outside, the waiting room and the turn around time quick. Something was strange to me though - I realized that the receptionist had gappy teeth. Nothing wrong with that but this was the first dental clinic I've ever been to where the staff did not all greet me a perfect set of pearly whites. The people in the waiting room went in with frowns and came out with smiles though so I thought, nothing wrong with this, perhaps the French just don't put as much of an emphasis on perfect smiles as North Americans do. The dentist came to take me into the room. He too had what looked like smoker's teeth. This was where I began to panic a bit - the metal instruments hanging over the chair were spattered in what looked like dried blood (though maybe it was just iodine?). I began to imagine oral complications, drilling noises, screaming, evil laughter and the like and was extremely relieved when all he did was swab my mouth with some sick tasting acidy stuff. It was when he told me to rinse and spit that I noticed and there were several broken teeth in the drain - I kid you not. 100 euros later, he gave me a prescription for three different drugs and told me to get my tooth taken out when I get home. You see, it seems that when my dentist told me years ago that I should get my wisdom teeth removed, I perhaps should have listened. It was not the impaction itself that was causing the trouble but the nano-sized debris caught under the gum that created an infection. Just the tiniest bit of food.