About Teeth

 

Me, my clean, top teeth, and a gourd as a hat.

My teeth ache.

There is a reason; I had my teeth cleaned.

There is a plethora of dentists in this area and last week I shopped around to get the best deal.

Last year I paid 50 euros for a simple cleaning that left me underwhelmed. That dentist also gave me a check-up and advised me that I should get a teeth guard. I don’t remember the quote they gave me but even with the member’s discount, it was exorbitant. They told me that I grind my teeth at night. I told them that I didn’t want a teeth guard—I didn’t tell them that in fact, I grind my teeth during the day, not at night—well, perhaps I grind them at night too—but the point is, they made assumptions and I hate it when people make assumptions about me and I’m not going to wear a teeth guard during the day.

So, this year I avoided the teeth-guard-dentist and popped into the dentist’s where I had had an emergency repair of a chipped front tooth in February. When I went in for that repair, they also gaily told me that they could do a reconstruction of a hollow tooth for 350 euros. Before we had begun, I had told them about the hollow and that I was okay with it. It has been filled/reconstructed two or three times over the past few years, but it always breaks and falls out. It does not hurt and the outside of the tooth that remains is sufficient to keep my face from collapsing in on itself. Unless it starts to hurt or crumbles away even more, I am inclined to leave it. Then I would opt for a crown or an implant.

They told me it would cost 52.50 for a simple clean.

“Thank you,” I said, politely.

I tried the next one along—they said, 30 euros for a tooth cleaning. The cheerful receptionist said it was a good, thorough cleaning that took about an hour. So, I booked myself in – thinking that 30 was okay. I walked home fantasising about having those wonderful pearly-white gnashers that you see on movie stars or now, more often on internet influencers. A funny word and I find it a strange profession and a weird concept. I also cannot imagine why anyone would want those heavy over-manicured brows and the trout pout, and why do all those lovely young things want to look like clones? Still, I wouldn't mind the pearly whites. In reality, my teeth are more yellow, owing to a lifestyle that includes red wine and coffee and just old age.

Today I arrived at 2.00pm and the cheery receptionist gave me a form to fill out which asked me questions about my health, including any allergies and whether I was, or was planning to get pregnant. I checked all the boxes that pertained to me—pregnancy not being a very likely option, but I do have slightly low blood pressure. Then I was ushered in by the be-masked dentist who was performing the task. I noted that he had an abundance of facial hair that strayed from various locations around the mask. 

I was amused when the cheery receptionist followed us into the surgery and asked me what kind of music I preferred—I thought that was quite a nice touch. “Acid Jazz,” I said—my favourite—but she only heard the jazz part, which was also absolutely fine. The jazz channel she put on the TV was nicely anodyne and quite soothing.

The dentist looked at my teeth and I told him about the hollow and my thoughts on it, which he seemed to accept. Then he delivered the bad news. “You are going to need a deep, deep clean,” he said. “You have some periodontitis and I need to administer an anaesthetic so that I can clean under the gums. I will have to do it in two sessions, the top and bottom separately.”

I had stopped listening around the time he mentioned anaesthetic. 

I gulped. “I hate injections,” my voice came out in a squeak. This was turning into something more than I had bargained for. I could also hear the cash register pinging away in the depths of my jazz-addled brain.

He must have read my mind. “It will cost you 80 euros for the top and 80 for the bottom.”

I mumbled something about it being more than I had bargained for and he said that an ordinary clean would just be like putting paint on a damp wall and it was worthless.

I had to agree. “Okay,” I said.

He sprayed something on my gums first, to numb them before the injections, but I still felt every one. It was hard to grit my teeth with two rubbery hands and a large needle in my mouth. So, I just curled my toes into my shoes and clenched my buttocks hard.

I know that I shouldn’t be such a baby, but I am. There is something about getting my teeth done that turns me into a jelly. The only thing that keeps me going to the dentist at all is that I know if I don’t, things could be much, much worse – so I opt for the stitch-in-time approach.

The hirsute dentist left me alone for a few minutes to go numb and I texted with my friend. She sent me a gorgeous video of her and her daughter having lunch and I sent back a photo of my Birkenstocks in the dentist’s chair and then a shot of my face with a slack overhanging upper lip. Then I just lay back and listened to elevator jazz while my overbite grew large as a potato.

The clean was as gruesome as I knew it would be and the dentist with the hairy neck had to give me some more anaesthetic halfway through. While he was scraping and sawing away inside my mouth, with the two rubbery hands and a tube sucking out the saliva, he asked me a question that I did not understand. Well, to be honest, I couldn’t really hear over the power tools and the jazz. Let me tell you, it is very hard to say, “I don’t understand,” in Spanish, with half a dental surgery in your mouth. So, when he had removed some of the items, I asked him to repeat the question. 

“Do you want braces for that front tooth that is (microscopically) out of alignment with the others?” he asked. He didn't say microscopically, but that is what I know it to be.

I was horrified. “No, thank you,” I said—thinking of how rude he was to point out my imperfections. He would be offering me a micro-blading service next. I huffily thought that he could do with a good waxing, but I kept that thought to myself as I didn’t want to antagonise him—he was the one wielding the drill.

By way of compensation, as I was leaving, he slipped a cheap plastic toothbrush and a small tube of toothpaste into my hand and cheerfully said, “Oh! By the way, you also have another small cavity in one of your back molars. We can talk about it at our next session.”

Great! so now, I not only get to go back for part two of the teeth-cleaning torture, but I will also have to arrange another visit, for a filling that will involve yet another injection. In my head, I also heard the merciless kerr-ching! of the cash register.

Still, he did not mention ‘The Hollow’ so I guess I should be thankful for small mercies—and I am. However, I think I may be hunting for another dentist in a year’s time. Did I mention the plethora?