"It's like pulling teeth!"

I don't know who coined that phrase, but I bet it wasn't a dentist. I would imagine it came from a time before dentists and refers to people pulling their own teeth, without the use of anesthetic. In which case it would be a good phrase for describing difficult ordeals.

Personally, I haven't had much difficulty in "pulling teeth". (The quotes are because there's not really a lot of pulling involved - the better word choice is "extract"). There was one time when I had scheduled 2 hours to extract 3 teeth. I had the first two out in
10 or 15 minutes, but the last one was a canine which had previously had a root canal - for some reason this makes extraction much more difficult, but I couldn't tell you why. Additionally, the tooth was decayed down to the gumline which made it difficult to grip with the forceps, and the canine generally has a really long root, which gives it better anchorage for tearing. Anyway, on this particular occasion I didn't finish the procedure until 1:30, not the planned 12:00. That was the only time I really felt that I was in over my head on an extraction. I'm sure there will be more in the future, but I've had around 30 good extractions so far in my time as a student dentist.


Back to my original thought process - if it were a dentist who had coined the phrase, then instead of "pulling teeth" it would be something like this: "My oh my, trying to put Jordan's pajamas on tonight was like setting teeth". Setting teeth you ask? Yes, as in setting the teeth to the exact right location in a denture. This usually is a frustrating experience. This week I've spent about 10 hours outside of class and clinic time working on my first denture. The frustration lies in that I stay late in the lab until I think I'm finished and make the denture look all pretty and ready to be processed by the lab, and I take it to get a signature then next day and I'm told, "The front teeth need to be about a millimeter in." So I destroy the beautiful wax gums I have made in order to re-position the teeth, and then make it all pretty again. Repeated three times.

Alas, I fear I am ranting now so I'll stop. It wasn't really that bad of a week. I was able to get the denture turned in Thursday afternoon and we immediately went to Disneyland and spent time with the Hinks who are here vacationing this week. We had a lot of fun with them.