Never had a cavity in my life. When I got braces in high school, they took out my 4 molars. With the extra space, they straightened my teeth so that when my wisdom teeth came in a few years later, they filled in the extra space. So I didn’t have to go through surgery or anything to get the removed.
Yay… I guess now I can say that I have more ‘wisdom’ than most people. Heehee…:rolleyes:
Had a few cavitities as a child but baven’t been to the dentist in about a decade since. I’ve got 28 teeth, brush 'em twice to three times a day, I don’t floss, use mouth wash whenever I can and I don’t eat candy 'coz I don’t like it. I’ve always been a milk-drinker as well. Yep, they’re in pretty good condition 
Ugh. :smack: Freudian slip.
It’s frenectomy.
Which is the reason you are having $1500 worth of scaling done. (I hope more than scaling is being done. That is a lot for the procedure.)
I don’t mind the dentist. I’m 24 and have no cavities, but I do have severe crowding and a nice little cross bite. And fangs. Can’t afford braces but since I’ve been this way for quite a while, I guess it doesn’t bother me as much as it used to.
Damn. It’s 6:30 in the morning on Saturday and I’m awake thanks to this stupid tooth. It HURTS! Took four Advil and applied lots of Orajel. Waiting for the meds to kick in, then I’m going back to bed. My cat can’t figure out why I’m not getting ready for work…
even sven, your post made me feel a lot better. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one.
And I want a gold molar! Then maybe Captain Jack Sparrow would accept me as his love slave. Arrrrr, indeed!
god, dentists, what a nightmare. my teeth were perfect as a kid, straight and kind of creamy white, no cavities. when my adult teeth came they looked the same, straight and pearly. sadly, due to some bizarre inability to process calcium ( apparently genetic, my mum grows extra bone all over the place) there was nowt solid inside the molars. first i knew of it, i was sat on the toilet having a very satisfying dump and two teeth exploded. not the most pleasant start to the day.
the dentist said he could either a, take them all out and give me dentures or b, drill out the insides and fill. i opted for the latter and he started his marathon task when i discovered that i was allergic to the injections you get ( no options on the nhs). after a few sessions of intolerable pain followed by hallucinations and vomiting, i ran away and hid. my teeth then disintegrated over a number of years and the pain became continual. i ( fool, fool) went back and had root canal surgeries (5) with no anasthetic until i could bear it no more. crazed by pain, i bit the dentist. he was most upset.
after a full and frank exchange of ideas, he sent me to the dental hospital, where they put me under, removed five teeth and patched up the rest. the front 12 are fine and the rest, well, you can’t see them so who cares, and i never liked toffee anyway.
I don’t particularly like the dentist, but I like my distinctive vampire teeth and I’d like to keep them. Never had any cavities, which is a record I’m proud of, so whenever I get gum pain I get really nervous and start brushing a lot. (I occasionally slack off and only brush in the morning.) Not the greatest flosser, though I did it when I opened this thread. And I always drink my soy milk, so I think I’m covered there.
Oreo, I won’t go into all of the details, but I will tell you taht I did not see a dentist for over 10 years. Recently I began seeing a dentist again, and I’ve had a root canal, several fillings and several crowns.
The big difference in my experience is that they don’t use novacaine anymore. At least my dentist doesn’t, nor does the surgeon he sent me to for the root canal. There’re other -caines about now. I believe my dentist’s weapon of choice is called procaine.
Huge difference. No pain at all. None. And fast acting - the last time I had a filling and crown fitted, the stuff started wearing off as I pulled up to the first stop light after leaving the dentist’s office.
Good luck!
I’m lucky, I have the same dentist since I was eight, if something was wrong, he did it. I went to someone else, he kneeled on my chest to pull a wisdom tooth, and gave me dry socket. I am cured. Stick with someone you feel comfortable with.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a cavity. I faithfully go to the dentist twice a year.
I have two wisdom teeth, and two more are working their way in. I used to like my dentist, but I just moved and had to get a new one I’m not crazy about. He smiled and said we didn’t have to take out my wisdom teeth “yet.” Jerk’s never gonna get my teeth, never, you hear me?! They don’t hurt, the dentist has admitted they’re not putting my other teeth in peril, so I don’t get what the problem is.
I abhor going to the dentist. I’ve given birth naturally and would gladly do that instead of sitting in that awful chair of doom. When I hear a power drill being used the back of my neck knots up because it sounds similar to a dentists drill. I don’t even consider this a phobia, as those are about unreasonable fears, dentists really do hurt folks!
That said, when something is wrong enough in my mouth to get me to overcome this and go, the last thing I care about is what their opinion of me is. Nor do I much care what the mechanic thinks of me as a person, do your job and I’ll pay the bill, end of relationship, thanks. If you can’t stop worrying about what they’ll think, Oreo try to remember no matter how bad your teeth are, they’ve likely had far worse. They’ve had to deal with folks who haven’t brushed in years, people who curse them, drunks who vomit right in the chair, etc. You’ll likely show up and be nervous but pleasantly mannered, freshly brushed, they’ll never be hating on you, seriously.
Oh, and straight liquor on the broken tooth will numb the nerve, far better than orajel and whatever amounts you swallow help too. Good luck.
34, no cavities ever. Brush often, floss sometimes.
See the dentist about once every two years. Wisdom teeth still intact. I guess I`m genetically lucky.
I’ve been blessed with relatively good teeth. Brush and floss daily, dentist twice a year. I’ve had a few cavities, but none recently. I had braces, though only to rid myself of a Letterman-style front-teeth gap. My wisdom teeth never even existed (woohoo!). My biggest problem is my teeth’s color: due to several years of heavy consumption of coffee, tea, and tobacco, they’re starting to look pretty yellow. I would have them bleached, except that costs money, and they’d probably yellow again in a few years.
Bah. Who started this recent obsession with perfectly white teeth, anyways?
Well, born in England in the 40s my teeth are a problem. My first memory of a dentist is this: I’m lying in a chair and some asshole is trying to put a nasty-smelling rubber thing over my mouth. At that time, general anesthetic was the norm and gas was the preferred method. Back then, dentists’ drills were belt-driven and very painful.
Today, fifty years later? My teeth are in pretty good shape. I enjoy visits to the dentist. They don’t hurt me anymore. I’m fixing to book a cleaning next week. No angst. No, none. Well, some. Actually, quite a lot. 
- PW
Oreo, I could have written your post. I hadn’t been to the dentist in over a decade. The shame of admitting how long it had been became a yet another stumbling block in seeking dental care. I knew I’d get mad over patronizing lectures, and I seethed to think of the dentist at some future cocktail party or ADA convention regaling everyone with stories about me, the nutjob with the worst teeth he’d ever seen.
What got me over all of this was a painful abcess. I wanted to die. It felt worse than labor. I still had all those dreads, but the pain was a bigger motivator.
I got a good recommendation, and to my great relief, the dentist was utterly blase about my record of dental care and the state of my teeth. I secretly suspect that after I left his office that first time, he called his wife and told her to book them first class tickets to Europe next year thanks to the money he could make off my neglected mouth, but if so he didn’t let on.
Now that I am no longer a dental renegade, you would not believe how relieved I feel. It was always a nagging thing I held against myself, even when my teeth felt fine. A little voice was always saying, “What kind of mature educated adult avoids the dentist, you weak little weasel?” God it’s so good to have that gone.
There is always someone out there with rottener teeth than you, with more neglectful habits, with wussier dentist issues. Take comfort in that.
A final tip: I find I feel better if I go in with some prepared lines to head the lectures off at the pass. I will say right off the bat, “I’d give my flossing performance this past 6 months a C-. I know I need to do better,” stating that last bit with a tone of finality. As in, topic is closed. I get it.
My teeth rest all night in a rather fetching designer glass filled with water and vinegar.
They wake me in the morning muttering, well lisping actually, “Come on time to rise and shine you idle bastard”.
Having listened to the buggers for a few minutes and realised that escape from the incessant babbling is well nigh impossible I drag my weary bones from my nice warm pit, shuffle downstairs to put on some coffee, haul my ass back upstairs and head for the bathroom.
Sitting there contemplating the ways and methods of the world while simultaneously having a poo and urinating I am concious all the time off my gnashers rambling away from the bedroom and the glass they repose in.
I have a wash and a shave and return to the bedroom, “About bloody time” shriek my teeth “We’re gagging for a cup of coffee”.
I take the swines out the glass, rinse under cold tap and apply that fix- it- in- your- gob stuff to the plate and shove the whole shooting match in my fizzog clamping down hard to ensure a firm and delightful fix.
This done I go back into the kitchen and pour myself some coffee, wait a few minutes then take a large swig. “aaaahhhhh” the pleasure, the caffeine, the feeling of being alive for yet another days toil fills me and my peggies with delight.
I finish my coffe and exit the house and walk briskly to my car…then I realise!!! I’ve not got any clothes on and the teeth in my gob belong to my wife.
Just thought I’d tell you
Mine are sharp and pointy and made of titanium…
I have a wisdom tooth that is bothering me right now. I only have the one and I went to a consult at the dental school and the lady I talked to talked me out of getting it removed. It would be a surgical thing and because of my age and the placement of the tooth it would be a fairly difficult procedure. It’s been irritated the past couple days, but it’s better today. I wasnt to wait till next year to have it done, as I do not have dental coverage any more, but I can use a medical deduction form my paycheck to pay for it and this year’s allotment is used up. My teeth are pretty good considering my lackadasical attitude towared flossing and such. A few cavities over the years and one root canal. My dentist is pretty good and I don’t mind going at all, I just wish I didn’t have to pay for it myself.
I chipped a front tooth after running into the side of a pickup truck when I was 7 years old. It was repaired with a bit of bonding material, but it wasn’t very durable–it fell off every year or so. I finally got braces when I entered the seventh grade. I wore them for two year; when they were removed, I was left with perfectly straight but horribly stained and pitted teeth. The pitting and staining was determined to be the result of dental flurosis. Before I entered tenth grade, I had six porcelain veneers on my front top teeth and eight resin veneers on my bottom front teeth. I’ve had numerous small fillings over the years due to poor enamel. My lower wisdom teeth were removed a few years ago; I still have the top ones because the surgeon couldn’t get to them.
My dentist has been awesome through all of this. He was actually hesitant to do the veneers himself–he didn’t think they would look good enough–but every dentist or oral surgeon who has seen them has been quite impressed with his work. Dealing with hygienists is less than pleasant though. Before I had the veneers put on, one hygienist informed me that my front teeth definitely weren’t pretty. And there always seem to be a few who ignore the bit written about dental flurosis in my chart, and insist that I wouldn’t have so many cavities if I would brush and floss every day. :rolleyes: