On friday week I will be going for my 6-month dental check up. My last one was in 1989. I expect they might decide some work needs doing. I’m a bit scared.
This is also a big psychological turning point for me. Back in the late 80’s I was having my face fixed with various operations and braces - my milk teeth never gave way so I had 11 extractions to save me being waay over quota in the gob department. I was part way through a project to get the remaining gnashers all nicely lined up and biting things properly when I moved from mum’s in the north to dad’s in the south. For some reason, which I shall uncharitably term as “dad not giving a fuck”, the work was discontinued and I was left, the boy who always brushed his teeth and was careful with sweets and had less fizzy pop than the other kids at school, with a gob like a derelict churchyard. A mere 16 years later, I’m ready to confront the issue. The plan was to cost up completing the work and then either (a) stump up the cash and finish the job, or (b) get over it. This was my New Year’s resolution for 2004. Obviously I couldn’t book into a dentist at the start of 2004 because I was due to fly out to America at the end of Jan, so I would deal with it when I got back. Slowly the trip got delayed by a month, and I flew out at the end of Feb. While I was there, a tooth exploded! Well, it cracked and a huge chunk fell off. I was gutted about this cos I know dentists hate it when people only book in when they need something fixing, and after 15 years of no toothache and fastidious brushing, the moment I actually resolve to pay attention to my teeth, they go wrong!
Now that I’ve taken the step and booked in to my local (private) practice, I’m looking forward to the first examination. It will be like Time Team: my canines are my original milk teeth and the ones next to them are actually the adult canines, which crossed over inside my gums and came down on opposite sides in the wrong positions, then were ground off and capped to look like the right teeth. I can still hear my hesitating dentist from back then: as a kid it would be
E D C B A A B C D E
… and in the ideal adult it is:
6 5 4 3 2 1 1 2 3 4 5 6
… mine goes something like:
6 E D C-rupted-4 2 1 …
Ooo I wonder if I can get Tony Robinson to film it and that friendly brummie to do the actual digging?
8 comments so far...
Ooh strange teeth!
As a youngster I had to have a couple of extractions due to the size of my mouth being insufficient.
Oh, and an operation to remove the tooth that had decided to grow not through the gum, where by rights it outght to, but through the roof of my mouth.
When I woke up from that operation the hospital gave me Weetabix without enough milk on for breakfast. That wasn’t at all painful. Oh no.
Hey - another member of the Strange Teeth Club. Check-up time for me this Friday, where I’ll be presenting Mr.Dentist with a case of “loose and slightly crumbling massive filling covering three-quarters of a molar, lying above some old root-canal work”. And hoping like hell that it isn’t extraction time… Good luck with your check-up.
Have you re-mortgaged your house?
Dentists are in league with the devil you know…
The kindly chap who ‘looked after’ my teeth whilst I was incarcerated in Scotland being educated decided that any namby-pamby anaesthetic was only for the weak or the English, so all 15 fillings in my head were placed there without any form of anasthesia whatsoever. He also took it into his head that I needed orthodontic work, so set about constructing this mammoth contraption to organise my teeth. When he approached me with this monster device, I recoiled at the sight of it, and asked what the piece of metal around the side was for. His reply that it was to turn a tooth around didn’t convince me, and the only way I let that thing anywhere near my mouth was by making him cut that bit off first. 4 years I wore that horrid thing, and not a jot of difference has it made to the way my teeth look today.
Oh yes, and since moving to civilisation, I’ve only encountered one nasty dentist who insisted on taking my four impacted wisdom teeth out one at a time (one a week, in the four weeks leading up to Christmas). I paid him handsomely for the work, and never went back to him again.
My dentist now is a sweet and gentle Irishman who insists I tell him if I’m the least bit uncomfortable. As I say, a lovely man, and I hope yours is just as understanding.
That’s the theory about the “Private” part. It gives me the “If you displease me I will take my monthly standing order elsewhere and you’ll have to find someone else to fleece”
That, and the fact that there are next to no dentists in York accepting NHS patients, and that the place I rang was listed as accepting NHS patients, though that turned out not to be the case.
Yay! glad to hear you’re going at last. I’ll come and hold your hand if U like!
I’ve been very lucky with dentists over the years, so don’t have any scary stories to tell. Have had extractions, fillings and braces(not that they made much difference). Carol I can’t believe you had all that work done with no anaesthetic, you were very brave, I flinch even with anaesthetic.
We did the dentist thing recently after 12 years off, I think. It wasn’t too bad.
I, too, remember fondly the family trips with the dentist telling the dental nurse what to write down. The ‘quote’ I remember is: “6… 5… um.. no… hold on… ermmm… give me a minute… 4? NO! E! Um…”
My amerikan dentist did not like all my English silver metal fillings so she ground them all out and put in new white ones. It was horrid. Good luck.
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