5 May 2001
I went to the dentist again yesterday for my cleaning (on Monday, I’ll be getting two fillings), and my dental hygenist decided that maybe my teeth weren’t as bad as they had originally thought.
Convinced that I had more plaque on my teeth than those little scrapper hooks would be able to get off, she used a “sonic tool” (which I’m assumming is somewhat similar to a sonic toothbrush). Oh my God I thought I was going to die. I’ve never experienced so much pain in my entire life. I thought my teeth were going to vibrate out of my jaw bone. My jaw still hurts a little and I have a terrible headache that I can’t quite shake. 24 hours later, I still feel achy all over.
I hate almost all dentists. For various reasons i didn’t really see a dentist until i was 19. I had a toothache. He stuck a needle in my gums –no anasthetics– and when I squealed he told me not to move or the needle would break off under my gums. it went downhill from there. There was pain, yeah, and helplessness. Later, another dentist had his helpers hold me down so he could work on me without me flinching. ever have two peopel hold you down while a third was jamming metal into your mouth causing excrutiating pain which you can’t do anything about?
So, many years later I’ve found a dentist who is a goddess. she specializes in traumatized patients (her words) and she says bad dentistry is like rape– your power is taken from you and you are brutalized. i tend to agree. I’m phobic now (that means even though i know it’ll be okay, I start to weep and go fetal at the sound of a drill. thank god for valium, or I coudln’t get my teeth cleaned)
Dentists are a bunch of god-damn inhuman sadists *except* the few that have realized that there are humans they are working on and not chevys. Keep changing dentists until you find one that treats you like one. Screw the rest. You don’t have to feel pain and you DO NOT deserve to feel it. this modern age has too many good drugs for that.
christina | 8 May 2001