More fillings?..

After a break of over 2 years I went to my dentist last week. I was summoned by letter with a reminder that I could be removed from their list if I didn't attend. Well, I did not want that, after all it is NHS.

I was expecting a bit of a bollocking, but fortunately my dentist's maternity leave, the fact that they hadn't been great at letting their patients know that they'd moved to spanking new and shiny premises, and the other fact that they'd lost my phone number in the move somewhow, all transpired to make it their fault and not mine.

Phew, that was a relief. I was in the clear, despite not bothering to chase my appointment up; I even received an apology.

My dentist is a very efficient young woman. Her white coat crackles with the sound of starch and she always asks about the toothbrush I am using. She really does seem genuinely concerned for my wellbeing, more concerned than I am myself actually, and she’s as gentle as possible when she scrapes and polishes away at my little toothypegs.

How different from my first visit to the dentist in the school playground circa 1962.

Back then the dentist visited us children in a big campervan affair with his surgery built into the back. He was one of the most dreaded school visitors, along with the nit nurse, the eye test man, the injection doctor, the speech thewapist, and the woman who whispered scary things behind your back to test your hearing.

Young girls would faint or throw up whenever it was announced in daily assembly that a visitation from any of the six horsemen was due. The boys would react to the news by acting even tougher in the playground, saving our tears for when got home. Our teachers would tell us not to be so silly and to pull ourselves together - it didn’t stop the need for buckets of sawdust in the school hall though.

Of course all dental treatment was free back then, courtesy of the National Health Service, and visits were a yearly thing.

On that first visit the dentist decided to fill one of my milk teeth. I don’t know why he bothered as it fell out soon after, but fill it he did, drilling without anaesthetic and telling me that it wouldn’t hurt. Well, it did hurt, it hurt a lot, and the taste of the shiny amalgam in my mouth was terrible. I’m sure I saw smoke coming from my mouth as he drilled into my gum, and I think I caught a glimpse of delight (which I would later call sadism) in his eye. He didn’t offer me a rinse, just passed me a tissue to mop up the blood as I staggered away from his torture chair, casually shouting for me to mind the step and to be sure to take a lollipop from the jar by the door as I closed it.

It was a while before I went to the dentist again. Somehow I managed to miss his yearly visits through various stomach or head pains; once I even spent dentist visit day up a tree in the park. Oddly, despite my long, long spell of non-dental attendance that is the only filling I’ve ever had and, as my dentist told me last week, my teeth are fine. 

Sadly, my gums are another matter.