I regret not taking better care of them in the past. I was never afraid of the dentist when I was younger, but after several horrible experiences growing up, I began to develop somewhat of a phobia of the dentist’s office. Because of that, until this past week, I hadn’t been to the dentist in 5 years. Prior to that I underwent a root canal, 4 crowns, 5 pullings (at the same time), 2 fillings, and a scaling/root planning. If you don’t know what some of those things entail, I urge you to look them up on wikipedia. Needless to say, they aren’t fun. On top of being extremely unpleasant in general, they were done by hurried dentists/dental assistants who didn’t supply enough novocaine, so they were excruciatingly painful.
My father urged me to go see a dentist now that I’m living out here in Seattle, and he (along with the dentist) promised that the ordeal would be painless and that they would take special care to make sure I was comfortable.
Today I went in for a scaling/root planning and I was horrified. I’ve had it done before with little to no anesthetic and that was enough of a terrible experience to have me literally shaking when I went in this morning, but the dentist and the dental assistant seemed incredibly nice and even offered to gas me up (I declined). To my surprise, the experience was fine. It wasn’t painful (except for the novocaine shots, which I can deal with just fine), after that I just sat there and everything went well. They only had time to do one section of my mouth, but I’m going back to get the rest done soon and I’m happy.
I was relieved also to find out that my teeth are in great shape otherwise. I don’t need braces. I don’t need to get my wisdom teeth taken out (I have a pretty big jaw), and I don’t have any cavities. My teeth are kind of aching now, but it’s nothing I can’t deal with. There’s no real point to this blog entry. I’m just happy that a) I’m getting my teeth taken care of, and b) it isn’t torture.
