Ooowwwww!!

Let this be a lesson for all you kids out there – go to the dentist often! Kristy and I haven’t been since we left Australia back in late 2004, and boy did we pay for it tonight. Well, not in a monetary sense – thank goodness for dental insurance – but boy the dentist was rough!

First came the most painful x-rays that I’ve ever had, involving biting down on an oversized piece of metal which stuck uncomfortably into pretty much every crevice in my mouth. I’ve never seen anything like it. Unfortunately, this had to be repeated about twenty times over, to cover all the angles!

Then came the actual cleaning. I’m not sure what hurt more – poking at the gums with the sharp pokey thing, or the high pressure squirty thing that blew away all the nerve endings on my gums. Either way, it was all bad. There was more poking, prodding and pulling, lots of bleeding, and one very dry mouth. Yes, it was not pleasant.

Finally she finished by telling me that I grind my teeth in my sleep (apparently more New Yorkers do this than anyone else, due to the stress); that I need to get one filling, and I need three teeth bonded (which I’d never heard of, but it’s like a coating over the teeth to help prevent further decay). Overall apparently a fairly good report given the time since my last appointment.

Kristy’s experience was much the same – lots of pain and blood – but next time she goes back, she has exactly double the amount of work to be done! Worse still, she has to have a “deep clean” under the bar behind her bottom teeth – which will require a needle, ouch!

So there you have it – dentistry in New York. Probably much the same as dentistry in the rest of the world – except, perhaps, for the temporary photo ID required to get into the building!