I have been fighting with my last upper molar on the left, probably for a couple years. Last April I had a root canal done on it. But even a couple rounds of antibiotics haven’t cleared an infection in the tooth. At my semi-annual cleaning, I asked the dentist if he could refer me to an endodontist so they could re-do the root canal.
The endodontist’s high-tech, super-powerful x-ray allowed him to have what looked like an MRI image. He basically 3D-rendered my skull and, along with the imaging software, could zero in on the offending tooth, then show any cross-section of it, both vertically & horizontally. It found zero evidence of nerve, but it did look like it had a crack in it. His recommendation was to pull it.
Today, a nice young doctor grabbed a rusty pair of pliers, and while his even younger assistant held my jaws apart with his hands, he yanked out the offending tooth.
I used to get a shiny nickel from the Tooth Fairy for every baby tooth I lost. Today that nickel has the buying power of 55-cents, but the tooth has a crown of gold. With the current price of gold, that tooth is worth almost $500. I’ll let you know how much I find under my pillow tomorrow morning.