I’ve never had a tooth knocked out before, and have been surprised by one of the effects.
The tooth was broken during a rugby match months ago, when I joined play without having put in my mouthguard. Though fractured, it stayed put until a couple of days ago, when it just came out, quite painlessly, snapped clean across the base of the root.
Then I experienced phantom pain, in the invisible tooth, right at the tip where I’ve not experienced any sensation in a tooth before. The inside of my mouth near the absent tooth feels numb; I’ve figured out it’s because it expects to feel a tooth and doesn’t, but instead of concluding that the tooth isn’t there, my brain is assuming the mouth has lost sensation. If I touch the inside of my mouth with my tongue or a finger, it stops feeling numb. When the touch stops, the numb sensation returns.
So I have a phantom tooth. At a guess, it’ll persist until the implant is fitted.
