Dental Dilemma

Today, for the first time in twenty years, I had a dental appointment.

Approximately ten years ago, when Adoring Husband and I first began spending our holidays in The Bay, we would walk past this dental surgery and make fun of the name, wondering who the hell would go to a dentist by the name of Spike Jan?

Funnily enough, all these years later, this same dentist came highly recommended by people I trust, so even though I originally selected a different doctor, I changed my mind and made an appointment with Spike.

When I phoned to make the appointment, I was given a 'long' appointment to fix whatever problem I had and to make a long term dental plan.

Knowing that I would have to fill out forms for my first time there, I turned up twenty minutes early.

There at the reception desk was a mother and her young son, who was about ten years of age. This young boy had been slotted into my long appointment as an emergency. The mother was filling in the same forms that I would be soon be completing, so obviously, this was their first visit too!

One of the questions is 'Are you afraid of dentists?' and then it gives you the choice of a rating from one to ten and the spot after ten is the rating 'petrified'. The mother asked the boy if he was scared of the dentist and he laughed at her and said 'no' like she was a fool for asking.

I said to him 'you are very brave' and his mother said 'I think dentists aren't half as scary as they were when we were kids'. I agreed with her and began to fill in my own form.

Forty minutes later, I could hear that same boy yelling from the room down the hallway and then the dentist apologising.  Soon after, the boy emerged with a mouth full of cotton wadding, very red eyes and a pained expression on his face. He looked at me. I looked at him. No words were required.

I considered leaving right then and there.

The reason it has been twenty years since I saw a dentist is because I am terrified of them. I hate the smell. I hate the sound of all those tools they use to drill, fill, clean, scrape, suck, blow and polish teeth. I hate the taste of everything that they put into your mouth .. the tools, the rinse, the cleaning fluids, the filling material. I hate the feel of the scraping and drilling and yanking. I hate the pain. I hate the cost.

There is nothing even remotely pleasant about a visit to the dentist.

It was now my turn.

I was called into a different room and was then asked to sit in a large spongy blue chair. He assumed that I was there for a check up, a clean and to repair a tooth.

So I explained that it had been twenty years, that I disliked him and 'his kind' and that I was there to have my front tooth looked at because it was loose, crooked, ugly and likely to fall out any minute.

He checked my mouth and discovered all kinds of ugliness there.

I have serious gum disease that needs to be rectified before my teeth can be touched. The two crooked teeth at the front will definitely need to be removed once the gum disease has been seen to. There are three other loose teeth that MAY correct themselves once the gum disease is fixed. All of my fillings are amalgam and need to removed and replaced. There is one broken tooth at the back that will need to be removed.

The teeth on the bottom jaw are ok, which is great, because apparently it is almost impossible to fit a denture properly on the bottom jaw. He told me to always try to keep the teeth on the bottom.

So now I have a referral to a Periodontist in Brisbane. He is, apparently, the best in Australia, so I hope that he can perform miracles with my mouth. I also need to have an x-ray before I go.

The dentist spent about twenty minutes scraping, scratching, pulling, gouging, polishing, sucking and blowing at my teeth to clean them and then explained the process that I would need to endure to get to the 'maintenance' stage.

He also told me that my serious gum disease was bad enough to negatively impact on my over all health and that it was imperative that I see to it quickly.

Surprisingly, with my private health cover, that visit only put me $100 out of pocket.

So that's it! My dental visit in a nutshell.

I'm not pleased, but it's pretty much what I expected.

It's now after midnight, so I'd best head to bed.

Nite all.