However it got me thinking about the trials and tribulations of visits to the dentist through the years. I have the bizarre experience of having reached three and a half decades on the planet and in that time I have only ever had the services of just two dental practitioners. I can't help but think that it quite surprising.
Only two people have delved into my mouth that I have directly paid them too (well those that I am sharing with you, mind). My old dentist who served me well for about thirty years retired to some such place about four years ago. He was a great guy in the old style. Worked at lightning pace, filled where needed and pulled forth my wisdom, teeth that is, from the "comfort" of his chair. He was old school.
Now however after he left me after thirty years, I have a lady from some far-flung place in Europe. Highly efficient, but very much in the new school of treatment. First and foremost its all about hygiene. I go into the room and she goggles up, masks up and puts those rubber gloves on. For a minute I always have to check I have come to the right place, and not that other "establishment" I might be known for visiting.
However, it is my dentist and masked up as if I have some sort of bubonic plague she attacks me with her implements.
Yesterday, like I said, I got away with it lightly. No work to be done. However in the past when she has had to repair some of my fillings (brush your teeth kids) it is a test of endurance. Mouth open for minutes as she sprays, pokes, and nudges away. Jaw ache like never before, as if I have been sucking on a football for an hour. Its ironic that now injections are common place which removes a lot of the pain from the actual work, a new form of pain arrives.
Bruised and battered, jaw aching and drooling down your chin. You look like Ricky Hatton after an all-nighter at the local pub.
There is also the small matter of the money you pay for the privilege for all this as well. Why do the NHS prices offer a buy one get half a dozen (or more) fillings free? Are they some kind of supermarket or something? It makes me want to pick the other darn fillings out if I need one, so that I get value for money.
However I am sure I have wrote enough of this waffle. If you have made it this far, you are probably more than able to survive the stress of the dentists chair.
Next time you are in the chair however, just lay back and thank god that Steve Martin ain't your dentist.
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