Pain tolerance and the dentist chair

A visit to the dentist sends some people into trepidation over pain.

Sitting in the dentist chair with heavy lead vest draped on my chest and a dental assistant prepping the x-ray machine for another set of images, I thought back to the many other trips to the dentist during my lifetime.

Some of them went smoothly, like the time I cracked a molar on a nut and the dentist to whom I was sent because my regular dentist was out of town proceeded to remove the tooth shards and pop a crown in like it was no harder than making a chicken sandwich. He was a brilliant dentist, and I went home ebullient that my shattered tooth was now permanently fixed. It was a like a miracle in my mind because it did not hurt a bit.

That’s what we want from the dentist, things fixed without pain. I walked out astounded someone could be so proficient in dentistry. His hands had worked miracles.

Losing and regaining a busted toofer

Then there was the time a front tooth got knocked out in baseball practice. With the afternoon light fading fast my coach yelled at me to take “one more grounder” at third base and tossed the ball into the air to hit it in my direction. But rather than a grounder the baseball flew through the air as a hard line drive and struck me flush in the mouth. Blood poured out in thick red spurts. My tooth hung by a nerve and the coach somehow reached my house by phone so that my dad could come pick me up.

I held the tooth up with my right hand and we traveled that way 10 miles from our home in Elburn to a dentist in Geneva, who stuck the tooth back in my head. It wasn’t the dentist’s fault that time that the tooth hurt.

Numbed up and ready to go

Fear of the unknown is part of the challenge of facing pain.

As kids we’re told it’s a big deal to come home from the dentist with no cavities. You can’t realize the importance of dental health until something really goes wrong. Then it’s time to have your tooth ground out or worse, a root canal.

That shit really hurts.

Even when you’re all numbed up with Novacaine and you can’t feel a thing on one side of your head, there’s a kind of emotional trauma knowing that there actually is pain going on in your head. You just can’t feel it because the medicine is masking the nerve reactions.

Recently a pretty good dentist did some work on a lower molar and the cavity underneath the old filling had come pretty close to the nerve. She numbed me up, then numbed me up a bit more when my body jumped as she skirted the area next to the nerve. I was jumpy and nervous because no one likes dental pain. But it got me thinking…

Pain tolerance

Life can be difficult when you are in the grip of pain.

Was all the pain tolerance developed over the years or running and riding any use in a dental situation? The two types of pain are quite different. One is self induced, while the other is unpredictable and as a result, scary as hell.

As young (or new) runners or cyclists we all tend to be pretty frightened of the pain factor in endurance sports. Marathoners and half marathoners spend months training in order to delay the pain of exhaustion as long as they can. With luck and good training in the marathon you can make it through 20 miles or beyond before real discomfort or The Wall (if you’re unlucky) hits you hard.

Yet we’ve found that with proper training you can avoid such desperate situations as The Wall or Bonking On the Bike.

Sustained pain

There have been cycling rides where the pain started in the first 5 minutes and lasted for 3 solid hours of riding. Finishing in 3 hours flat at a rate of 20mph you feel pride in having fended off or ridden along with pain for that long. You wonder how you do it. Or, as my daughter is fond of saying, “Why do you do that shit?”

It can be hard to explain to those who regularly avoid pain of any kind. Why do you go out and run till you puke, or until your legs give way in fatigue and your lungs heave with effort?

You do it because it feels good not to be a wimp. That’s the best explanation there is, quite frankly. Yet it’s a tarsnake of sorts. You pursue pleasure through sustained pain? How f’d up is that? Well, a lot of people embrace that philosophy. So either we’re all fucked up or else we’re really on to something…

Pain by degrees

Triathletes specialize in facing three different kinds of pain.

Pain defines us for better or worse. When I watch triathletes emerge from the swim and trot to their bikes, then hang up their bikes and transition to the run, it is impossible not to think, “What kind of sadist thought this up? Was it really a bar bet that started the Ironman Triathlon?”

It’s like triathletes aren’t satisfied with just one kind of pain. They have to explore three different kinds; swimming until their arms ache, cycling until their legs turn to jelly and then pounding out a half or full marathon while trying to eat at the same time. It’s insane. But they love it, clearly, or thousands of people would not line up on Sunday mornings dressed like seals to participate.

Marathoning and other 

I was not really “marathoner” per se during my peak competitive career, that period when you set all your PRs and if you’re lucky, win a few races outright.

I simply liked racing shorter distances too much. 5K. 10K. 10M. Even the occasional half. But I ran several marathons and trained the distance several times in practice. Here’s what I can tell you about running 26.2 miles. It hurts sooner or later. Sometimes a lot. Your only goal is to survive sometimes.

But what’s it worth? Does suffering in sports make you better able to suffer in life?

Here’s what I can tell you about that.

Painful lessons in life

Who would think that a simple bike could both cause and save you from pain?

When my wife was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and my mother turned out to have pancreatic cancer and died the same year, there was plenty of pain to go around in life. But here’s the truth: I knew how to get through it. You set short term goals to help take the next step. You have come to realize that even profound pain is usually temporary. You can survive if you are patient and perseverant. Just like the bible says.

I made it through the first few months with my wife getting sick from chemo and my mother fading fast, when one day I got a call from my former high school coach cross country and track coach who heard about my situation. We talked a bit and then he sagely said, “Chris, your whole life has been a preparation for this.”

He wisely meant to say that all the pain does matter. It counts toward our emotional salvation. You even appreciate your own vulnerabilities better. You know how to accept and handle humbling situations. And when small victories come around, or even large ones, you know how to celebrate with dignity and respect.

That’s what the pain can teach you, because once felt, you know it can always come back. And that is an invitingly humble, profound fact. The pain matters. It really does teach you things.