Tuesday, September 01, 2009

D Day and Dysfunction

Today is D Day. I have my every-other-five-years-whether-I-need-it-or-not cleaning and check today.

I hate going to the dentist. It makes my teeth itch. All the scraping and the gouging and the poking and the drilling send me UP. A. WALL.

I also know beyond a reasonable doubt that I have cavities that will need to be filled, so there will be more drilling and scraping and gouging and poking in the future.

I HATE going to the dentist.

Every little scrape or scratch they do with that scraper scratcher thing echoes in my head and makes me feel like someone is scraping my very bones. It puts a fear in me greater than any surgery ever could. Because I KNOW it's going to hurt and there won't be anything I can do about it.

I know I'm irrational. I am a native of the irration. I am full-blooded irrational, and proud of it.

I think this stems from Dental Trauma I had in the past. It's a well-documented syndrome, at least in my own mind.

The dentist I went to in my earliest years decided to pull some teeth of mine because my mouth is apparently too small to handle the normal amount of teeth. Which you would never guess, never in a million years, if you happened to know me well, as I know all of you Interpeeps do.

Ahem.

Back to Dr. Dread.

At the tender age of before I was sixteen, he pulled at least four of my teeth - maybe more - using what was available at the time for anesthesia. No gas, no putting me out, just a couple of shots of a numbing agent. And apparently he didn't use enough or didn't give it time to work well enough because it was almost time for One Life to Live or The Guiding Light or some other soap he watched on a regular basis and he didn't want to miss seeing Stone and Crystal's wedding. Because, you know, they've been through so much in their lives to get to this point what with the drinking and the affair and the long-lost father who was a pirate and finding out their child of love was switched at birth with another baby and one of them is gay and all.

So when Dr. Dread pulled my teeth he was obviously in need of some Soap Opera Therapy in a big way. He needed to hurry, and my mouth wasn't cooperating by getting numb enough fast enough.

So he pulled my teeth anyway.

And I heard and felt them coming out. Those roots run DEEP.

Strike one.

Fast forward fifteen years.

I now have a different dentist, one who is a son of a friend of my father's. And I find that I need not one, but TWO root canals done.

Never, ever chew ice. 'Nuff said.

Not knowing my past, he misunderstands when I grip the arms of the chair like a vise. He spanks my hands and commands me to STOP THAT RIGHT NOW!!! in a loud voice. Apparently he has no sympathy for fear.

After he finishes his work, I have no sympathy for him and never go back.

Strike two.

The next dentist is a cousin of Hubster's. While he is wonderful at what HE does, his hygienist is not. My gums bleed like a stuck pig after seeing her, and are swollen for days.

Strike three.

I am now in my late forties and find I have two cavities that need filling. I asked my boss for a referral, and he sends me to his dentist. The hygienist is nice, if a little rough. However, she uses "laughing gas" to make me more comfortable after I tell her my fears. When I am seen by the dentist to fill my cavities he pumps me so full of gas I float away.

I decide then and there I will never change dentists again.

But I still have a hard time going in. It's the scraping thing still. I just can't seem to get over that, so I haven't been back in almost three years.

But then the kids got after me, and Hubster got after me, and I got after me, and so I'm going today.

But I don't like it.

Not one bit.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I wrote this.... I had to have ... cause I HATE GOING TO THE DENTIST!!! EVER... NO MATTER WHAT!!! AMEN!!!!
Debbie