Wheeeeeeeeeeee!
The art of dentistry has come a long way since I was a nipper.
Our old family dentist, back in the day, was a nice fellow called Mr Clarke. But Mr Clarke had a little secret: when the Air India 747 exploded over the Atlantic in June 1985, it was he who was called in to identify many of the recovered bodies from their teeth. Dental Pathology was his thing, and this perhaps showed in his attitude towards his living patients.
I never had an injection in all the years of going to that dental practice. Indeed it came as something of a surprise the first time I was jabbed in the gum before the drill. Before then I had endured numerous fillings, as well as the insertion of metal pins into the remains of one of my front teeth to act as an anchor for a cap. I had left half of the tooth on the bottom of a neighbour's swimming pool after foolishly making a deep dive in the shallow end.
About a year after the first cap was put on, it fell off. Once more Mr Clarke drilled out what little of the tooth remained so that he could put in more pins and make a more secure cap. Once more he didn't use any anaesthetic. I can still hear my scream when he hit a nerve 'which should have been dead', but wasn't. I have a lot of sympathy for Dustin Hoffman.
Some years later, in another town and another practice, I had to have root canal surgery on that same tooth (quite why they couldn't just whip it out, I'm not sure. I couldn't care less if it looked odd - I've always preferred comfort over vanity). This was the first time I'd ever had anaesthetic for a dental operation, and it certainly made a big difference. Even so, it was a deeply unpleasant, brutal and traumatic experience - that tooth still aches to this day, more than ten years later.
But things have moved on. Dentists no longer pedal like mad to get their drills going; filling amalgam no longer tastes of cloves; the mouthwash is green, not pink. Today I had an appointment for a drill and fix at nine fifteen. I was out, all finished and slightly droopy of lip before ten o'clock. OK, so the anaesthetic made me feel a little jittery; my mouth's sore now it's wearing off and I've been left with a horrid metallic taste on my tongue. But all in all the experience was pretty painless - almost pleasurable compared to Mr Clarke and the dark old days.
Our old family dentist, back in the day, was a nice fellow called Mr Clarke. But Mr Clarke had a little secret: when the Air India 747 exploded over the Atlantic in June 1985, it was he who was called in to identify many of the recovered bodies from their teeth. Dental Pathology was his thing, and this perhaps showed in his attitude towards his living patients.
I never had an injection in all the years of going to that dental practice. Indeed it came as something of a surprise the first time I was jabbed in the gum before the drill. Before then I had endured numerous fillings, as well as the insertion of metal pins into the remains of one of my front teeth to act as an anchor for a cap. I had left half of the tooth on the bottom of a neighbour's swimming pool after foolishly making a deep dive in the shallow end.
About a year after the first cap was put on, it fell off. Once more Mr Clarke drilled out what little of the tooth remained so that he could put in more pins and make a more secure cap. Once more he didn't use any anaesthetic. I can still hear my scream when he hit a nerve 'which should have been dead', but wasn't. I have a lot of sympathy for Dustin Hoffman.
Some years later, in another town and another practice, I had to have root canal surgery on that same tooth (quite why they couldn't just whip it out, I'm not sure. I couldn't care less if it looked odd - I've always preferred comfort over vanity). This was the first time I'd ever had anaesthetic for a dental operation, and it certainly made a big difference. Even so, it was a deeply unpleasant, brutal and traumatic experience - that tooth still aches to this day, more than ten years later.
But things have moved on. Dentists no longer pedal like mad to get their drills going; filling amalgam no longer tastes of cloves; the mouthwash is green, not pink. Today I had an appointment for a drill and fix at nine fifteen. I was out, all finished and slightly droopy of lip before ten o'clock. OK, so the anaesthetic made me feel a little jittery; my mouth's sore now it's wearing off and I've been left with a horrid metallic taste on my tongue. But all in all the experience was pretty painless - almost pleasurable compared to Mr Clarke and the dark old days.
Comments
You know how your mind plays tricks on you when you're having surgery if you're awake? When I had my wisdom teeth out I was thinking it hurt after a while, but then I thought I was just thinking that and tried to think about something else.
The dentist stopped and looked at me and said, "If you're pulling back, then you can feel it." I'd left a nice impression of my back in his chair.
Much quicker.
(but not for root canals - anything like that and I'm wanting drugs!)
And you're supposed to say no to drugs.