wotd: megrim, brought to you by Rita Ranch Dental Group

megrim \MEE-grim\, noun:

1. A migraine.

2. A fancy; a whim.

3. In the plural: lowness of spirits -- often with 'the'.

After much procrastinating I finally set up a dental appointment with an office that takes my insurance. The technician took multiple Xrays at my first consultation; the dentist told me I need a scaling and optional antibacterial irrigation as well as 2 fairly comprehensive Cerac crowns. No new caries, though.

So I set up the appointment for the scaling and irrigation. It sounds terrible, and I'm squeamish about teeth things. I asked Mandy, who'd recently had the same treatment, if it hurt. "Nah," she said. "But the tech kept apologizing for the machine so I'm not sure if it was working right." When I got to the dentist's office, I asked the hygienist, "Is this going to hurt?" "No," she assured me. "No more than a regular cleaning."

No more than a regular cleaning in a medieval barbershop using these types of dental tools. Not seconds after the hygienist reassured me, she attacked the gums around my right back molar so fiercely that the tip of her broadsword burst through my lower jaw. "Just raise your hand if it hurts" she said as she carved away at my gums with as much gusto as Friar Tuck carving into a haunch of venison. I was incapacitated by the sudden pain, so much so that I simply lay there, tears streaming into my ears and bloody drool pooling in my clavicular hollows.

After an eternity the scaling was over and the time for antibiotic irrigation had arrived, plunging me to a whole new level of purgatory. I don't even know what the tool looked like, but it sounded like a banshee of mythical proportions and felt like the very enamel was being flayed from my teeth. I've always prided myself on my high pain threshold, but I would have confessed to anything that hygienist accused me of. Anything. By the time the irrigation was over I was a blubbering mess, surprised to find myself continent, resigned to a major megrim later in the day. I left the office delirious with relief.

I'm now dedicated to daily flossing and a visit to my dentist every six months. I don't want to endure that "painless procedure" again.