People should carefully select a dentist. Don’t put up with someone that’s rushing or not concerned with their patient’s pain.
A large practice has several dental hygienists. Request someone else. Or pick a different dental office.
I avoid the slick, franchise dental offices. Go with a local.
We kids had a dentist, somewhere my Daddy was stationed.
You DID NOT go to in the afternoon. He spent his lunch break having a liquid lunch and pouring himself back into the office.
My story I tell to dentists is how they took our wisdom teeth out in boot camp in the Navy.
Those of us who would potentially go into submarines had to have our wisdom teeth out, so as to prevent inconvenient dental issues in clandestine locations.
One day, about twenty of us marched on down to the medical building for this exercise; we went inside, and stood in the fastest moving line I was ever in, outside of the chow line.
Each guy took less than two minutes.
When my turn came, I sat in the dentist’s chair, he injected me with anesthetic, and as he set the syringe down, without slowing down the motion of his hand he picked up the pliers/forceps and started removing the teeth.
I didn’t feel a thing, so it was clearly not Novocain that he had injected, but I just about fainted at the sight of him grabbing that tool without even waiting for my jaw to get numb.
My current dentist told me what he thought the stuff must have been and mentioned that there are health risks with its use, but with healthy 18-year-old recruits the risk was minimal.
I went as a kid, no complaints, but my parents did not get me braces or any orthodontics I needed, and I’m still paying for it 60 years later. My teeth are the least healthy part of me, but I’m not complaining.
My one gripe is that I notice that when a new dentist takes over a practice, they start finding all sorts of problems with your teeth. Now that I don’t have insurance I’m seeing it more. I had what looked like a tiny little cavity on one tooth, that the dentist said needed to be filled. Like it was a small thing. When I went for my appointment, it turned out that since it was under a crown it was going to cost $1600. Screw that. I found another dentist, who didn’t even see it on the X-ray.
Dentists with paid up practices seem a lot more conservative than ones paying down their loans.
Plus, it really is a black box.
How many of us get an expensive or ominous assessment and actually do go for 2nd or 3rd opinions?
Wanna’ laugh a little and wince a bit? Just under six minute YouTube video from the comedy/satire channel, Cracked.
I’m not dental-phobic, but I have a profound/extreme needle phobia.
When I was sixteen or seventeen, I had a cavity. The idea of getting an injection of Novocaine in my mouth was so awful that I insisted on the filling without anesthesia. I furiously recited “The Cremation of Sam McGee” in my head, over and over and over, to distract myself from the noise and pain and taste of the procedure (dear God the pain). And I didn’t go back to the dentist for almost a decade.
When I went back, they had to do a Gross Debridement, presumably because of how gross my teeth were. But I got back on a schedule of going, and now it’s not nearly so bad. Every six months, and my teeth get all clean and polished and nice-feeling. Totes worth it.
I sometimes wonder whether my complete lack of romantic success in college, and my complete lack of dental visits in college, were entirely coincidental.
No, and yes.
I’m 50 years old, never had a filling, and the most trauma in the dentistry was when my extremely thin, long, sharp canines were removed (yes, this is true, and I was not bitten by a vampire) due to my mother’s aesthetical tastes when I was a young teenager.
So aside from the social stigma that comes from not being a vampire, which I have mostly overcome - interactions with goths are still tricky…
a) No, I’m not phobic, and
b) I can’t be bothered to go.
If a problem occurs, I might change my mind.
I have a major phobia going back to being treated by a Naval dentist the early sixties. Lets just say he didn’t have the best chairside manner. I fell out of a tree and lost a tooth and the temporary spacer popped out several times. This resulted in multiple unpleasant visits. According to both the dentist and my father it was my fault and it was a major inconvenience to them. I jokingly say that it resulted in a case if PDSD (Post Dental Stress Disorder).
That experience translated into my avoiding dentists for many years which resulted in just the kind of issues you’d expect. No fun at all.
The only upside is I ended up being referred to a wonderful periodontist who is the best health care professional I have ever encountered. I still don’t enjoy my time in the chair but I know I’m in good hands.
If you contained your diet to only eating rudimentary vegatables and meat, and no processed foods and sugar, then your teeth could probably survive your current dental care routine. But if you avail yourself to processed foods, sweets, etc. even on a once in a while basis, you’re teeth will betray you and begin losing your teeth and have advanced gum disease well before your life expectancy is scheduled to give up.
This is totally me.
Just add in a massive gag reflex
(For context, last month I gagged at the ear doctor. A first for him I imagine)
Never had a dislike of dentists, just couldn’t be arsed to go. Had my wisdom teeth out in my early teens, all four at one sitting, one a surgical extraction. Never bothered me a bit, the dentist was good. Many fillings before I was out of the house. A broken front incisor from a bicycle accident, temporary put on it, lasted several years, had another temporary put on, lasted several more years, haven’t bothered to have it fixed since. Started into grinding my teeth at night as I got older, as a result molars 2 & 3, 14 & 15 got crushed and cracked, and had to be extracted. Two were done on private pay, those teeth made them earn their $1,600 fee. Only time I had a problem with needles is when I jumped during a procedure, and the doc lifted my upper lip and came at my upper gums with the hypo. I crabwalked out of the back of the chair. Have several cavities waiting to be filled, some new, some due to missing fillings. I go if I’m in pain, but not particularly otherwise. Getting to the point my uncle got to - “Pull them all and get it over with.” He wore his dentures twice - once when he got them, and once when my aunt made the funeral home put them in his mouth. He’d eat anything - steak, corn on the cob, whatever - he had tough gums.
Ah yeah, boot camp wisdom tooth extraction was a hell of a thing. I remember it vividly.
They just gave me a local–they at least had the decency to put a rag or something over my eyes… I remember this because I could peer out the bottom and all I saw was this jacked dentist pulling bloody bits out of my mouth. (I also apparently had one unknown tooth that was just kinda sideways and hiding down there or something, so pretty much got a bonus roto-rooting in there that seemed less like dentistry and more like excavation.)
And the sounds. Oh dear God the sounds.
They chewed on bones and didn’t have soda pop and candy.
You’ll have to drastically change your diet.
Good luck finding Mastodon on the menu at Cracker-barrel or Outback.(Cooked rare, bone-in)
My younger brother religiously avoided the dentist all his life, right up 'til the undiagnosed jaw cancer became too painful to ignore. Too late, 45 years old.
Dan
I live in a different country with a different culture. I am a little on the “extreme eater” end…
I won’t be finding mastadons on the menu, but eland, wilderbeest, hippo, elephant, zebra are all available in specialty restaurants. Unusual, yes. But I’d have to search for, say, a whole goose, whereas I know exactly where to get a brace of guineafowl. I’ve eaten all of the above, and warthog, guinea pig, giraffe, and… a bunch of others. Not yet brave enough to try dog or cat.
I have a distant relative, the late Frank Buckland, who literally ate the zoo (zoöphagy is a thing!), alas, paywalled
Wikipedia is not paywalled, but less well written:
I’d like to go more often, but dentists are much too expensive.
I have a gag reflex also, but not that big! The new X-ray targets are a lot smaller than the old ones, and much less likely to make me gag. When I was a kid I went years without X-rays since I couldn’t stand them in my mouth the time required, which was measured with a calendar in the '60s.
Went to my periodontist today for my quarterly cleaning, during which my first implant crown (posted 10 years ago) popped off #8. I have an 8 a.m. appt. with my dentist tomorrow to recement it. Two 24-mile round trips.
These posts! These people who still have their teeth!
Whats it like, having lower molars and being able to eat normally?
I can’t even remember.
I actually hadn’t been for a cleaning for 3 years and when I had one in January there was no plaque to scrape off!
I brush about 3 times a day.
I’ve always had a fear of losing teeth. That’s the only reason I go to dentist appointments regularly. They aren’t fun. But dentures are worse.
I am missing two back molars but can still chew normally.