I need a root canal.

A highly sensitive person's idea of hell.

Since my teenage years, my various dentists have coated my teeth with a very thin layer of composite filling material.

This was done preventatively because most of my teeth are not perfectly smooth but shapely, ridged and jagged. The dentist predicted that the level of detailed daily brushing required to prevent cavities would be unrealistic so he recommended the ridges of my molars be filled slightly to give me an easier time of keeping my teeth clean. And it worked. No cavities, no fillings, no problem.

I moved to Canada in 2020 and pretty much as soon as I touched down, covid hit and I was unable to get to a dentist for almost a year. When dentists finally reopened in Montreal, I went for a check-up, and the pretty, red-headed French dentist informed me I had a massive cavity on the buccle of my bottom left molar.

This is one of the spots my previous dentist had preventatively filled. The composite coating must’ve come loose, unbeknownst to me. My usual brushing routine was now routinely missing a spot right up against my cheek, at the furthest nook of my jaw. This spot of decay was getting bigger and bigger as I ate my way round Montreal via Uber Eats. Sleeping on my left cheek night after night, baking sugar and bacteria into my poor wee tooth didn’t help either.

She said the tooth was ‘borderline’. It could possibly require just a deep filling, or I may need a root canal. She cleaned it and filled it and told me to come back if I experienced any pain.

In April 2021 I moved back to Scotland unexpectedly, and my tooth got worse. I visited my regular dentist (who was surprised to see me, since the last time I saw him, I told him I was leaving for Canada for good!). He took x-rays and said I needed a root canal. I felt scared. Much more scared than I usually feel at the dentist.

He referred me to a specialist.

The day of the treatment came and I was not ok. I tried to exercise in the morning to burn off some anxiety but I still felt worried. I walked to the dentist with my stomach in knots. I did not feel ready. I did not feel informed. I did not feel considered. I did not feel supported. I did not feel safe. I was shocked at how not able to get a grip of myself I became.

As the specialist explained the procedure to me, I realized it was much more invasive than I thought - basically bordering on surgery. I felt filled with sadness and grief at losing a little pulpy part of myself.

The specialist struggled to get the rubber dam fitted over my tooth, owing to how far back the tooth is set in my cheek and jaw, and the more he struggled, the more time I had to think about what was happening, and the more I started to panic.

I tried to breathe and calm myself.

I was given numbing injections and I couldn’t feel the left side of my face, but as the dentist began working on my tooth, a searing hot pain shot through my body like a bolt of lightning. I flinched as the pain surprised me and a tear rolled down my face as I tried to hold still.

Then, I full-on started to cry. I was shocked at myself. I did not have a grip on my emotions or this situation at all.

The dentist sensed my distress and stopped.

He said that the nerves inside my tooth were inflamed, which was why the anaesthetic wasn’t effective. He also said that it was only the top part of the nerve that was damaged, so he’d clean it again and patch it up with a filling. I didn’t get a root canal that day and I was so relieved.

The tooth was fine for a few months, but the pain and inflammation has started up again. I went to the dentist and, guess what, I need a root canal.

I have never had a fear of the dentist before, so I was surprised at my own emotions and behaviour around this procedure.

As the introspective type, I knew there was something deeper going on. I searched within to find out why I had suddenly developed fear of the dentist, and why I was reacting this way.

I journaled and asked myself two difficult questions:

What are you afraid of?

And

What does this remind you of?

The dentist is a difficult place for highly sensitive people in general, and it’s a difficult place for me, at this time in my life, specifically.

Not all highly sensitive people are mediums, but I think that most mediums are highly sensitive people.

I have always been sensitive - in body, mind, heart, and nervous system! Each of my senses are very highly tuned, and I’m easily moved to tears by beauty, joy, cruelty and sadness in equal measure. I have often been told I’m ‘too sensitive’ or a ‘drama queen’ by the less sensitive among us.

My hearing is particularly sensitive. When waiters clatter cutlery into a drawer at a restaurant I spontaneously flinch and grimace. And when cars or trains come to a screeching halt, I physically have to cover my ears. Metallic sounds shoot through me like lightning.

The dentist is full of such sounds. Drilling, whirring, and vibrations close to my ears are deafening, and metallic instruments in my mouth are tough to tolerate. The sounds and sensations cause an uncontrollable alarm reflex. The best I can do is try to breathe and ignore the urge to flee.

Besides being sensitive, there is the additional challenge of requiring this treatment at this specific time in my life. I have been brave and positive in the face of a series of traumatic losses over the last few years (why does life get into these weird phases of calamity? Have you noticed?) I lost both my dog and cat in the separation of my previous relationship. I lost my home and my familiar routines. I lost my car, my home, and my family when Corbin (my new partner) and I attempted to start a better life in Canada. I lost my freedom, my autonomy, my ‘self’, really, during covid. I lost the ability to make friends due to the language barrier in Quebec. I lost the love of a close family member because I stood up for myself. We’re still not speaking. My ex emailed me to say my dog had died, and in the same email, threatened me with legal action over money. I had held out hope that I’d see my pets again, but in that moment, all hope, and any sense that my ex ever cared about me, were lost. Corbin and I packed up our things and moved back to Scotland, and everything we owned was destroyed in a fire on the final leg of its journey. My journals from when I was 14. The homemade Christmas baubles. Small mementos I used to clutch to my chest for comfort. Lost. Lost. Lost.

The losses have been relentless. I do not feel I have had the time or space to grieve any of them. I am fresh out of courage, strength and resources. I feel that I need time to catch my breath and heal before I’m forced to give up any more soft and pulpy parts of myself.

Dental treatment requires surrender. And surrender, through the lens of sensitivity and trauma, can feel like helplessness and powerlessness. There is nothing quite like a stranger poking around inside your soft mouth to remind you of all the other times you felt you had no choice.

As a highly sensitive person at the end of a difficult chapter of my life (hopefully!), it has taken a gargantuan effort to prepare myself to go through with this relatively-straightforward procedure. I have cried. I have called upon the support of my best friend in the States. I have asked my sister and Corbin to come with me on the day, and I have a detailed, step-by-step plan in place to carve out some control:

I will speak to my doctor about the possibility of a single dose of anti-anxiety medication.

I will visit the specialist for an initial consultation and a trial run.

I will exercise regularly.

I will meditate regularly.

I will practice deep breathing.

I will take Corbin’s noise-cancelling headphones with me.

I will avoid caffeine on the day.

I will take Corbin or my sister with me.

I will raise my hand if I feel pain or need a break.

I will trust the dentist.

That’s the big one for me. Trusting the dentist. I felt lucky that I escaped covid times with just a cavity, but I hadn’t realized, until I needed a root canal, just how much the events of the last few years have eroded me. A little bit of synthetic filler is all it takes to fix my tooth, but what will it take to fix broken trust - in myself, in others, in life?

I did not notice I had come untethered, and I am surprised to find how far I have drifted from the harbour of trust.

To trust my dentist is to surrender to the process with faith that it will work out. I used to be good at this. I used to live my life this way. But in the last few years, for reasons previously mentioned, life has required me to plan things, fix issues, solve problems, micro-manage processes, and wrestle calamities to the ground.

I’ve forgotten how to simply exist. How to take things in my stride and just be. In the face of concentrated evidence to the contrary, I’ve forgotten how to believe that it will all work out.

Perhaps this is the lesson of the root canal. Surrender. Trust. Begin to re-learn that it will all work out.