A colleague of mine recently told me about a weatherworn old farmer who came into is office one day. “Doc,” the man said, “I got a tooth in here I need you to take out.”
Examining him, the dentist found that the man had only one single tooth in his mouth. It appeared, however, that several nearby teeth had been extracted recently. “Why didn’t you just get this one taken out with the others?” my friend asked.
“’Cause I couldn’t get any leverage with the screwdriver for that last one,” the farmer answered. “There wasn’t any other teeth in there in there to pry against!”
Evidently, this self-sufficient farmer had used a household tool to remove almost every remaining tooth in his mouth. Although he was certainly resourceful, the method he chose for tooth removal was quite unwise. In this particular case, the patient faired OK. He was lucky to not develop an infection from his choice of non-sterile instruments, not break off a root tip of a tooth, not impale himself with his screwdriver, nor bleed heavily. But another patient of mine was not so lucky.
This patient came to me with the complaint of a sensitive tooth. On examination, I noticed that he had a significant amount of gum loss between the sensitive tooth and the tooth immediately forward. The rest of his mouth looked fine. I asked him about this and he replied “yea, I got something stuck between my teeth, so I tooth an Exacto ™ knife and got it out.” Well it turns out he got more than that out from between his teeth. He succeeded in removing all of the gum there, too, and it won't all grow back. He has exposed an area of his tooth that is supposed to be covered by gums, and now it is bare, and sensitive to cold air and drinks, and probably will be for some time to come, or at least until he gets a crown on his tooth.
The moral of the story: Leave the dentistry to the dentist. And for my part, I promise to leave my screwdrivers and Exacto™ knife on the workbench in my garage where they belong.
