It’s all in your head…

The last four weeks have been absolutely miserable for me… I’ve spent way too much time at the dentist’s office… and far too much money! Postponing the inevitable for the last eighteen months, I finally gathered enough courage to step over the threshold of the dental clinic to start my necessary bridge procedure. It’s been stressful, to say the least, between appointments, infections, aching jaws and tears. Argggh!

Not that I’m blaming my dentist – she’s been absolutely stellar, considering her chosen profession as a torturer, but in my mind all dentists are Orin Scrivello, DDS – the sadistic dentist from Little Shop of Horrors.

Long, long ago… in a old Victorian building off Stretford Road, in Manchester, England, I first came face-to-face with the British equivalent of the SS-Einsatzgruppen: the NHS school dentist. Claw marks and gashes on the chair were my first indication that this was not going to be fun. The fact that I could hear screams and crying from another room didn’t ease my mind any either, and to this day I suffer from what has been diagnosed as dental anxiety syndrome, a very common ailment especially for Brits growing up in the mid-20th century.

Well, do you blame us?

No freezings, no high-speed drills, no elevator music to soothe the savage beast (the dentist, not the patient!), no conscious sedation; 1950s was dentistry at its most archaic, barbaric and unbelievably nasty. Added to that were the abhorrent surroundings: high hospital-green ceilings, bare bulb fixtures, white and black tiled walls, the noxious smell of chloroform and disenfectant, and the most uncomfortable wooden benches in the waiting room.

No wonder the British have poor dental habits!

Times and procedures may have changed… but I haven’t. Those memories are indelibly etched in my mind and the fact that I bit one dentist when I was eight years old, and refused to open my mouth for another one when I was ten years old – and was unceremoniously ejected from his office, much to the shame of my mother – cannot take away the weak knees, quickened pulse and tremors I experience each time I sit in the chair of doom.

That being said, I do appreciate the dentist I have now. She understands my trepidation and the clinic receptionist greets me cheerfully each time with “ready for your happy pill?!” which I gladly place under my tongue and wait for it to take effect. Most of all, I’m grateful to my husband who accompanies me each time I have a dental appointment (in sickness and in fear of dentists, I believe were part of our vows) as he’s the one who drives home a staggering, drooling, slap-happy ninny, all the while listening to protests of “I’m fine, honest!” as he rolls me into bed to sleep off the effects of my medication.

This isn't going to hurt a bit! (No, it's going to hurt a lot!)

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