Wednesday . October 3. 2001 . 7:00pm I went to the dentist today for a cleaning. Which sounds innocuous enough, but involved more scraping and poking and buzzing and pointy-hook-things than I normally enjoy on a Wednesday morning. Also turns out that one of the old fillings in a back molar had somehow chipped, and needed to be replaced. Which meant more poking and numby-shots and drilling, accompanied by the smell of smoking vaporized mercury and enamel. Guh. I hate going to the dentist. We were told in a Neuroscience class first year that the reason people dread and loathe dental work is that the pain fibers in your teeth have a direct extension to your amygdala, an area of the brain responsible for the fear response. Well, whatever the reason is, I hate going to the dentist. This almost always has nothing to do with the dentist him or herself, as most of my dentists in the past have been pleasant, gentle people. It's not their fault that people hate coming to see them. It's the fault of the poking things. And the sound of the drill as it burrows into your teeth. And that nauseating fluoride gel. Yeah, and while I'm on the subject: note to the American Dental Association. Whose bright idea was it anyway to offer fluoride gel in "bubble gum" flavor? Have you tasted that stuff? Please, if you must have flavors, just go with the old dental standby of "mint," but please leave the exotica off the menu, because frankly, it tastes like vomit. (That goes for you too, "fruit punch" fluoride gel.) So the dentist I went to see today is a nice guy. He was gentle and didn't yell at me for using the wrong kind of toothbrush or anything like that--he even very nicely showed me how to read dental radiographs when I asked him to explain what he was looking at. I don't hate him. But I hate having Troubled Teeth. I hate it that I have to take up so much of his time. I hate that nails-on-a-chalkboard feeling that vibrates my whole jaw while I push myself deeper and deeper into the examining chair as through I could actually escape the drill's whining squeal. It's not even over. I have to go back on Friday so that he can finish off the job. Do I know how to spend my week off or what? |
Get your hands out of my mouth. |
