Not just for only children! Info, stories and life experiences for anyone who feels like they didn't get the How-To brochure on life! Host Tracy Wallace, who has been a business owner, a successful fundraiser, a stand-up comedian, a caregiver and an animal lover, shares stories from the front lines of adulting to help others in this journey called life. She does this while finding the humor in the all situations.
An 8 out of 10 tooth pain will humble you fast. I woke up in the middle of the night with pain shooting through my head, tried Motrin and Orajel, and realized I had to call my dentist the second the office opened. What followed was the kind of adult problem nobody trains you for: making a scary medical decision while you’re anxious, sleep-deprived, and hurting, then walking into the appointment alone because life logistics do not pause for panic.
I tell the full story behind my dental anxiety and why it still feels traumatic even with a kind, sympathetic dentist. We get into the surprising “why do you still have wisdom teeth?” backstory, the cracked tooth history, and the moment the X-ray answers the question I didn’t want to ask: infection. From there it’s real talk about options, including why I said no to a root canal and how quickly “we can do it tomorrow” turned into “we’re doing it today” because of scheduling and nitrous oxide availability.
You’ll hear what actually helped in the chair: tissues, steady reassurance, topical numbing, local anesthetic, and nitrous oxide while I focused on breathing and kept my eyes away from anything sharp. I also share what recovery felt like week one, from antibiotics and gauze to soreness that made me second-guess everything, plus the weird emotional jolt of realizing you’ve lost a tooth. If you’ve ever struggled with fear of the dentist, wisdom tooth extraction, or just trying to take care of yourself when it’s inconvenient and uncomfortable, this one is for you.
Subscribe to Only Child Diaries, share this episode with a friend, and leave a rating and review so more people dealing with dental anxiety can find us. What’s your best trick for getting through a dentist visit?
Welcome to the Only Child Diaries Podcast. I'm your host, Tracy Wallace. Have you ever felt like you didn't receive the how-to brochure on life? That you didn't get enough guidance about major life issues? So did I. You don't have to be an only child to feel this way. In my podcast, we'll explore some of the best ways to better navigate adulthood while doing so with humor and light. Welcome everyone to the Only Child Diaries Podcast.
Today, I'm going to talk about me a little bit. So I'm trying to uh experiment with moving it around within the confines of a very short electrical cord and everything that that involves. So you might hear it in the background. I don't know if the filters that the podcast recording goes through will completely take it out. But um it's anyway, apologies for any um extra noise in the background. But today I'm gonna talk a little bit about something that happened to me as as for a change instead of something that's directly affecting my husband here. And um that is uh that recently I had this uh well, I had some dental pain. And you might remember if you're a regular listener that my first episode was about dental
anxiety, and even though it's been a long time, I have a great dentist who is very sympathetic and kind and caring about my dental anxiety. It doesn't matter, I still have dental anxiety, and when I go in for anything, it's still very traumatic for me. But this particular day, uh about two weeks ago, I woke up in the middle of the night and I had really extreme pain in part of my mouth, uh, an area of teeth. I wasn't really sure which tooth it was, but it was just radiating through my head. And I would say on a scale of one to ten, the pain scale, it was probably an eight. It really did not allow me to think clearly. Um, it was just I I took some Motrin, uh, like a Motrin 800. I used some or gel and I just slathered that all over the inside of my mouth, and that wasn't touching it. And so I waited until the office was open at like 8 a.m. and I called first thing and I said, Look, I I've got to come in. And they said they could see me on short notice. So I really wasn't sure what to expect. Obviously, I had to go by myself because my husband is not really that mobile, and it didn't make any sense to drag him along. I mean, I I could have put him in the wheelchair and put him in the car and wheeled him up there to be with me, but that didn't make any sense. And I frankly, I was just too much in pain to really think about doing all that. I just wanted to get there, and I was thinking about well, what is this? What's happening? Maybe it's just something they can give me antibiotics for, or it was um a flare-up because I grind my teeth and I hadn't been wearing my night guard, you know, shame on me. And so I I thought, okay, well, I'll just go and try not to have any expectation about what's wrong. Um,
so I went and then I started to have meltdowns. I started crying. I mean the anxiety alone, right? But also the pain. Uh they took x-rays. The dentist came in and talked to me a little bit. And then, you know, it's time to look in my mouth, and I just started crying. And I said, You're not gonna hurt me, right? You're not gonna hurt me anymore than I'm already hurting. And he said, No. And so, I mean, but they could tell by the x-ray what was wrong. Um, I had, I still, I still had at that point, I still had three of my wisdom teeth. Don't ask me why. People say, Why do you you're in your 60s? Why do you have your wisdom teeth? Well, long story short, uh, when I was a teenager getting ready to have my braces, I did not have my wisdom teeth yet. And they could see that the wisdom teeth were in there, I guess. They had formed and they hadn't grown out yet. And so they said, look, if you once once your wisdom teeth come out, you're you have a very small jaw, you're not gonna have room for them. So they took out four of my permanent teeth. Uh, the ones behind my uh I don't know, I'm not really good with what they are. I guess my bicuspids or something. They took four of them out, one on each side
and upper and lower. And so that when the wisdom teeth came in, there would be space for them. About I would say 10 or 12 years ago, when we were in Vegas, I bit down on something and I cracked. I cracked one of the wisdom teeth. And this is when I hadn't really been to a dentist in a while because I was so scared, but I had to deal with that. And I had that one out. They sedated me. I was completely out, and um, they pulled it, and um, you know, it was just I could feel it, it was just like a jagged, it was like a jagged edge back there. And that was a big deal because you know, I came back and I was recovering from the sedation and I had been I was just gone the rest of the day. I mean, I was sleeping and whatever. So I still had three of my wisdom teeth. Okay, so a while back I had a cavity in one of the other wisdom teeth on the top, and I I didn't really want to lose it. I didn't want to pull it. So my dentist um put a crown on a half like a half crown on it. He wasn't happy about it, but I s but he did it. And you know, he said we might have to pull it down the road, whatever. Okay, so it was this this tooth. And they looked at the x-rays and they said it's infected, and that's the reason, and it had the cavity, and so there was the only other way to save it was to have a root canal, and that was a hard no because living through that other root canal. I mean, maybe you wouldn't mind uh having a root canal. That was a horrific experience for me. So uh I said, no, I don't want to have a root canal. So they said, okay, the only other option for you is we have to extract it. At which point I had another meltdown.
And they said, okay, well, we can do it tomorrow. And I'm thinking, okay, my my mind instantly went to who can I bring with me? Because I need I don't want to go through this alone, right? So I was going through my list of friends, like, okay, I'll I'll call my friend Lena. I'll, you know, she has dental anxiety, but she's not gonna be the one. Uh she's not gonna be the one in the chair. So she'll come with me. I need support, you know, right, whatever. So I was sitting there again crying, and they were trying to figure out, I guess, all the parameters, and they have to tell you how much it's gonna cost and all that stuff. And then they came in with the cost estimate for me to sign, and and the gal, another gal, she said, Well, we're gonna do it today. And I'm like, wait, wait, wait, what, wait, what? I thought we were gonna do it tomorrow. And she said, Well, no, it turns out that we don't have we don't have the space tomorrow, we don't have the time tomorrow, and you want the nitrous oxide, which is the laughing gas, which I definitely needed at this point. I mean, I needed all hands on deck and anything that I could possibly possibly have to help me get through this. I was not gonna um go without that. So she said we we don't have that available tomorrow because they only have, I guess they only have one station with it, and that was gonna be used tomorrow at the same time. So I just swallowed really hard, and I continued to have my meltdown, and I thought about the pain that I was experiencing, and you know, the pain, I guess, was stronger than the anxiety at that point, which was pretty strong in and of itself, and I said, Okay, you know, I'm gonna do this on my own. It's like jumping off a cliff, basically, without a parachute or without a line or safety gear or whatever. So uh then I said, Well, I and the the hygienist was Nancy was so sweet, and she said, Is there anything I can get you? And she kept giving me tissues, and I was like, Well, no, I mean, uh, you know, I was a mess. I mean, I'm a tough, strong person, but when it comes to dentists, forget about it. I'm like a disaster. So I
said, Okay, well, I think I should probably go to the bathroom first. And she said, Okay, and they have they have bathrooms out in the hall. And I said, I could I could run. I could just go to the bathroom and leave. And she said, Oh no, we have a bathroom right here. You know, they weren't gonna they weren't gonna let me go. They weren't gonna give me a chance to run. Um we have a runner, so that wasn't uh I wasn't tempted to leave anyway. So I did that, and then they um they strapped me in to the nitrous with the nose cone. I tried to breathe as deeply as I could to take advantage of that, let me tell you, and just keep breathing, and then the dentist, he is so awesome. I mean, I made the mistake once of looking at that contraption that they put the Novicaine in with, and I will never do that again. So close my eyes, and you know, when he he puts the topical um numbing medication on first, and so by the time that he puts you with the injection, you don't feel it, but it's still like, you know, uh, you know you're being injected, but he's so good with it. Uh, and then waited for myself to be numb, didn't feel the pain. And I have to say that the part where they brought the tooth out was a lot faster and easier than I thought it would be. Um, but I mean that was like the least of my worries at that point. So then we were done. I was still breathing in the nitrous, then they they let that go. And then, okay, so then I have to go get my my antibiotics later. Uh I have to keep sucking on these gauze pads because I'm bleeding all day. Be careful how you eat. Oh, yeah, don't worry about that. Okay, so
came home, felt like I had just been completely run run through the ringer, and uh started taking my antibiotics, and he gave me for the pain, he gave me Motrin 600, which I didn't even know existed. But really, I would say for the first week, my mouth was still sore. All parts of my mouth were still sore, and I was starting to question if something really went wrong because I I didn't remember it being that sore for that long. But um, and the roof of my mouth was really irritated, and I would do the warm salt water and it stung. Try the Origil eating just a big uncomfortable mess. Anyway, uh getting through it, but uh definitely a tough week. Definitely uh I have to go back and you know see see him just to check it out, make sure I'm progressing okay. Um it's funky to lose a tooth. Got that big hole back there. Um just had so many challenges with my teeth, and they they had me buy one of those, I guess, I don't know if it's a sonic care toothbrush, that thing will basically shake loose all your brain cells. I don't know. I just I'll try it if it's yeah. So and then they also, you know, I had it, it's it was ironic because the day that I went in and had this done, I had actually canceled my deep cleaning appointment because I have so much going on, and I thought I'm gonna put that off. And I ended up there anyway. Um, so I have to still get my deep cleanings done, uh, which is joyful, uh, which is more Novicaine, which I'm thrilled to pieces about, uh, let me tell you. But when people say, take care of yourself, well, I did take care of myself. It wasn't any fun, but I took care of myself that with that. So, but dental anxiety, I'm telling you, is real. And I talked to the visiting nurse about it. She's like, Oh yeah, I'm scared of the dentist too. And yeah, I had to, yeah, everybody has their own story. So with that, I will leave you. Next week, we'll tackle another topic together. I hope you'll join me. If you like this episode, please follow the Only Child Diaries Podcast on Apple Podcasts or other platforms you might listen on. And consider rating Only Child Diaries and writing a review. It helps others to find us. Please share it with a friend you think might like it as well. Visit my Instagram page, Only Child Diaries, or Facebook, Only Child Diaries Podcast. Thanks for listening. I'm Tracy Will. And these are the Only Child Diaries.
