My Mouth is Frozen
28 August 2007, early evening
The right side of my mouth is partially frozen. The last time my mouth was frozen like this I had just taken lost 4 wisdom teeth; today, I had a cavity filled. My old dentist was a little bit more gung-ho in his approach to dealing with cavities. Dr. Singh would look at my teeth and say to himself, “I think we can do this without freezing.” He would then proceed to drill a hole in my teeth. I managed to get two cavities filled this way, so clearly, he could do it without freezing. Still, I wouldn’t call either event pleasant.
Is this a cultural difference? I’ve never heard it called “freezing” them. Is that literal, like actually using something cold? We just call it using novocaine, or perhaps the verb anesthetizing.
by Ben on August 28 2007, 6:53 pm #
It’s just another way of saying anesthetizing I suppose. I had Novocain injected into my mouth to freeze it. I don’t think it’s just a Canadian thing though.
by ramanan on August 28 2007, 7:55 pm #
Weird. I mean, we refer to numbness and all of that, but I’ve never ever heard someone from the US call it freezing. There are other US Americans (with and without maps) around here, anyone have an idea?
by Ben on August 28 2007, 8:27 pm #