A Riposte


I am a dentist and I feel that a response to some of your tales (some of which sound rather overly elaborated) is required;

1) Many of the posts contain or revolve around the sentiment of "I hate dentists" or "I hate the dentist/going to the dentist". I can understand the reasoning behind this knee-jerk reaction, but may I point out that a world without dentists would undoubtably be a worse place. Toothache that could not be cured and in many cases would result in the sequelae of potentially life threatening infections, individuals with aesthetic problems that cripple their confidence and who face a future of pursed-lipped awkward semi smiles in photos.

2) Whether you choose to have your tooth problems treated by the dentist or not essentially boils down to a choice between short term, transient discomfort or long term often difficult to reverse deformity.
If you have a cavity in your tooth and you choose to leave it until it becomes painful (as many people do) you may have lost the chance to have the tooth restored with a filling and will probably need a root canal treatment or an extraction. If you leave a broken down tooth until it is infected and swollen then it is going to be harder for us to numb up/take out. If you wait until you have an entire mouth of broken down, chronically infected teeth, do not be surprised when we can't sort them out for you with the ease that we probably could have if you attended when the problem was small.
In summation, if you are not too big a wimp to put up with (in most cases) less than a minute of discomfort while you are being adequately anaesthetised prior to simple early treatment, then the road down which you are travelling ends in toothless hillbilly town.

3) Your problems are (in 95%) of cases self inflicted. You come to us with problems you have mostly brought on yourself through your own laziness and or ignorance and expect us to fix them, and are shocked when we have to numb you with a needle or use a drill on a tooth to remedy things. Do you want me to use a magic wand or voodoo chanting?

-If you eat gluttinous amounts of sugar/acid containing foods or drinks and don't clean your teeth regularly then you will get tooth decay, and ultimately it will hurt/lead to the loss of your teeth.
-If you smoke/don't clean properly/don't floss, then you risk gum disease which can lead to your teeth getting loose and jumping from your mouth like rats from a sinking ship.
-Don't come to me and say "but I hardly eat any sweets/always clean my teeth, yet for some reason this decay keeps coming back/my fillings keep falling out" - I don't make the rules, take it up with god or allah or nature or the cosmos.
-Parents don't say to me regarding your kids: "but he/she won't brush his teeth/won't stop eating sweets" - if you can't control your awful kids, how am i meant to get through to them?

4) People of this era (and by no means not just the young) do not realise how lucky they are that their everyday waking life is not almost constant harsh physical discomfort. If you were a medieval peasant or you worked in a mill in the industrial revolution, life was one long series of nagging blisters and calluses and sores and aches, your fingers would be red-raw, your back and shoulders probably twisted out of recognition, not to mention tramping through muddy fields in sodden boots tilling a plough from dawn till dusk in fear that the land owner would evict you into likely starvation.
----Now that is pain and discomfort and once upon a time it was omnipresent in the lives of almost everyone on this planet, and it will always be a fact of life that should be accepted (and Nietzsche would say even embraced), but now you people sit on your fat arses watching Tricia or the fucking Jeremy Kyle show or you do some job that I imagine isn't very difficult or makes much difference to anyone and you come into my surgery and moan and writhe and groan in agony at seconds of sensation that your great grandparents or serfs in china would laugh at.
(Calfderno, Wed 8 Nov 2006, 23:41, Reply)

Such a nice man.
My dentist was doing his usual check up of my teeth, then he said 'Wow. That enamel is really white. I've never seen it so clean before. Well done. I'm impressed."

This was quite good coming from a dentist so I felt quite pleased as I opened my eyes.

His assistant was scrubbing out the sink.
(ladyintheradiator, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 22:24, Reply)

Here's one reason I haven't been going to my local dentist recently

( chthonic, Thu 2 Nov 2006, 15:18, Reply)

Waiting room incident
Had the usual dentistry problems- wisdom teeth, cracks, chips etc but this story is about the waiting room.
I was sent back to the waiting room after an injection to let the drugs work. In this waiting roon was about half a dozen people - the usual crowd, couple of older people, cute teen, mum and toddler and Mr Wide-Boy. Mr Wide-Boy was exactly that, tall, big build, tanned, polished bald head, loads of gold jewelry etc. He was lounging on one of the seats, looking cool, arm draped across the back of the chiair, legs spread wide in that "look at my package" pose.
While I am trying to stop myself from drooling in front of the cute teen, this guy is sitting there looking all smug.
Now, this waiting room has a small pile of plastic toys for kids to play with, and the small 4/5 year old that is with the young mum is palying with these. She picks up a plastic telephone and walks around everyone, offering it to them. Naturally, I pretend to pick up the phone, have a brief conversation with an invisible friend and the little girl toddles off happy. She does this with everybody - until she reaches Mr Wide-Boy.
She just wanders up to him, and with a childish giggle, smacks him (as hard as a toddler can) in his knackers with the toy. Mr Wide-Boy collapses in a heap.
Ever been in a room with 5 or so people laughing hilariously through their noses so they don't get caught?
(Darth Thump, Thu 2 Nov 2006, 16:26, Reply)

My wife has a big mouth.
A very big mouth. She can fit her fist in it, or for that matter, a small horse. Once when she was in the dentists chair, the dentist said "Open wide". She did. Shocked at the now gaping maw that appeared he stumbled backwards and said "Gracious, not THAT wide."
(lardaholics anonymous, Tue 7 Nov 2006, 15:50, Reply)

My dentist
My dentist is a biscuit tin. Sometimes when I need to see him, I march into my kitchen and knock three times on the biscuit-tin lid and wait for the response. "Yes?" I hear back after a short pause.

"I'd like to make an appointment mr biscuit-tin dentist" I politely reply.
Now, some of you may know, in my kitchen the biscuit tin is situated next to the toaster. This is a fun little fact I like to mention from time to time but it is irrelevent here.

So once my appointment has been made, I write out a little slip and post it gently inside the tin and take a seat in the waiting room, which doubles as my wardrobe.

After sitting hunched up in my wardrobe for 20 minutes, I crawl out and impatiently trot downstairs and march back into my kitchen to angrily confront the biscuit tin about the length of my wait. "I've been in your crappy waiting room for twenty pissing minutes, when can I expect to see the dentist". No reply.

This is unaccaptable so I make my mind up there and then and decide to go to another dentists. A BETTER dentists. "yeah a BETTER fucking dentist" I shout right into the biscuit tin, opening the lid and screaming inside so my anger vibrates inside of it.

Now, I'm a bit screwed here as the next nearest dentist is my bog brush which is upstairs in the bathroom. I think long and hard about this and eventually decide I can't be arsed so I admit defeat and go and sit back down in the waiting room. It is only on the way to the waiting room that I realise I have passed the other dentists on the way.

"Oh well" I thought "maybe next time...... maybe next time.............."
(Andrew Avetoom, Mon 6 Nov 2006, 19:49, Reply)

Scream
Some years ago I was summoned for a regular check up. My two budgies, Percy and Emily (named after the Coronation Street characters), had both passed away in the previous two months, so I was glad to have something to divert my mind from the all-consuming misery that had engulfed my very soul in recent weeks.

I walked into the surgery for my check up confidently. I've never been scared of dentists. After all, they're just ordinary people like you or I. (If you're a horse, then I apologise for such a sweeping generalisation, but I would be interested to know what kind of modified hoof-mouse and equine keyboard you use.)

"HELLOOOO THEEEEERRRRRE!" screeched the dentist through the hygeine mask covering his mouth and nose. The sheer force of shock slammed me into the back wall. Not wanting to offend the dentist, I smiled politely and sat on the leather chair.
"JUST LIE BACK AND RELAAAAAAAX!!!" he wailed. I did as he said and looked up at his upside-down face glaring down at me. His glassy eyes peered down through wire-framed spectacles. "OPEN YOUR MOOOOUUUUUUTH FOR ME PLEEEEAAAAASE!" Tufts of golden hair reached out from his scalp like solar explosions spewing from his head-sun.

"I CAN SEE IN YOUR MOOOOOUUUUUTH , STU!" he squawked with glee. "NUUUUUUUURSE! COME IN HEEERE AND LOOK AT THIS YOUNG MAAAN'S MOOOOUUUUTH!"

The door smashed open and a nurse, also with a mask over her mouth and nose, hopped in, arms by her side, feet and legs together, like a hygienic mouth-kangaroo. The dentist grabbed a mirror and held it in front of my face. "LOOK AT YOUR FAAAAAAAAACE!" he screeched. "LOOK AT YOUR MOOOOUUUUTH!"

This was all a bit too much. I decided to leave and go private. I tried to sit up but I was unable to move.
"YOU C-C-CAN'T L-LEAVE, STU," chirruped the dentist.
"Do I know you?" I asked, frightened now.
The dentist laughed, and the nurse joined him. "OH YES, YOU KNOW US!"
They removed their masks and stared at me expectantly. The nurse looked vaguely familiar, but the dentist's face drew a blank.
"AAAAH," he screeched, "FORGIVE MEEEE!" With that, he removed his glasses. It was then that I noticed the white, downy fur on his cheeks and the yellow feathers around his neck. I looked at the nurse. I hadn't noticed before, but her head was full of blue feathers, and I could now see her orange beak.
"Oh no!" I cried. "Emily! Percy!"
The two dental budgies burst into hysterical laughter.
"I don't understand," I said. "You're dead."
"WE WEEEERE!" hooted the dentist. "BUT WE'RE BAAAAAACK!"

And that was how I found out that my two dead budgies had been reincarnated as dentists.
(stusut79, Wed 8 Nov 2006, 11:56, Reply)

I've got a dentist appointment this afternoon
It's at 2:30







/coat
(go on, it's been a while, clicky)
( ogwen69 has returned from Reddit, Mon 6 Nov 2006, 9:52, Reply)

Nil oral pain...
I've never found a dentist as good as the one I had when I was a kid.
He always gave me a general anaesthetic for even the most minor procedure.
In fact the only pain that I can recall was always waking up with a sore bum.

But the dentist assured me that was a common side effect of the anaesthetic…
(emadex thinks the world will end on, Thu 2 Nov 2006, 22:56, Reply)

Nobody likes dead baby jokes
It seems that I am not alone here in having had orthodontic treatment when I was younger. Well, good. You all deserve to suffer.

Anyway, I visited my orthodontist once a month or so and my mother, who would happily talk to a potato if she thought it was listening, built up something of a rapport with her. They would chat away whilst the friendly Indian lady poked around in my mouth with various instruments of torture.

Until, that is, she became pregnant and disappeard on maternity leave. In the interim, I had my mouth fiddled with by a fat man who smelled like stale sandwiches and wasn't very good at his job.

You can imagine my delight when my regular orthodontist arrived back. Until, that is, my mother asked how the baby was and she turned around, tears in her eyes, and spake thus:

"Oh, wonderful. Beautiful, really. He was a lovely baby. But he, um, he died. In my mother-in-law's arms. No reason, just one of those things. Excuse me."

She left the room shaking, and I never saw her again. My mother still sometimes finds bits of sock stuck between her teeth.

[Insert obligatory 'it's my first time, be gentle' and/or penis size joke here]
(clumsyeloquence is a girl, Tue 7 Nov 2006, 11:12, Reply)

Dentists... all of them... in a queue
Because lady luck is an ugly cunt she tends to be a tad bitter, and occasionally wreaks havoc on the meek and helpless for idle kicks. When i was born i drew the short straw and ended up her victim de jour (correct spelling? ha! unlikely). The result being i was born with a 'cleft palette' or "Hairlip" as the more lovely people call it.

For those not in the know a cleft palette is, oddly enough, where the palette (roof of the mouth) is still in two halves, and hasn't joined in the middle whilst in the womb (hence 'cleft'). So my first visit to the dentist was the day i was born, with it going down-hill from there.

I spent the first year of my life with a couple of cm gap in my upper lip, and surgery twice. Then surgery every few years until i hit my teens, with the aim of slowly shuffling my teeth about in preparation for final surgery later (oh how i waited with gleeful baited breath).

As a teenager from about 13-16 i visited Manchester dental hospital once a MONTH for brace, adjustment, occasional recreational teeth pulling and general checkups... until they rolled out the big guns.

In the middle of my A-levels i was finally 'ready' to have the final ops. Which were to break by upper jaw away from the rest of my skull; remove chunks of bone from my hip and put the bone fragments in the newly created gap betwixt jaw and skull.

This had the bizarre effect of waking up from the anesthesia and having a newly shaped head. It took months to learn how to chew properly again, and various speech therapy sessions to learn how to speak properly again. I've forever been grateful that this coincided with desperately trying to lose my virginity.

All operations over, and it HAS been an improvement, not sure it was worth 18 years of pain though... and for some reason i still have wire retainers behind my teeth. apparently they "weren't worth taking out"... fair do's.

Such long term treatment meant quite an odd relationship with my dentist, i'd been with her since birth... and seen her go from trainee to UK's leading paediatric orthodontist (i'd like to think i taught her everything she knows :D)

No apologies for lack of hummus, or extreme length... after all b3ta is cheaper than therapy. ;)

(note: after all this i STILL never went emo... fuck knows what awe inspiring suffering they must have endured to be such miserable twunts :P)
( Shiodome has realised numbers in names aren't cool., Mon 6 Nov 2006, 0:58, Reply)

It's a gas...
Mrs Slicker's mum was knocked out using nitrous - when she woke up she asked
'Is it a boy or a girl?'
Dentist: "No, Mrs Slicker's mum, it's a tooth."
(Countryslicker, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 11:22, Reply)

Dentist's finger
I was having a few teeth taken out and my mouth had been aneasthetised. A few minutes into the procedure, the dentist began to shout:

Open your jaw! You're biting me!
Ggg g ggh! [No I'm not!]
OPEN YOUR JAW! You are biting my finger!
GGH G GGH! [No I'm not!]

Of course, I couldn't feel a thing because of the anaesthetic, and the full force of my jaw was clamped down on his finger. In the end, he had to prise my mouth open with his other hand and bandage the wounded finger.

But not before he brandished the digit in my face: a livid and empurpled sausage imprinted with a flawless imprint of my molars and incisors.

He later became a priest.
(frankspencer, Thu 2 Nov 2006, 15:22, Reply)

My Dentist
Is lovely as pie

My orthodontist on the other hand...

Ok, I lie, it's not so much that he's evil, incompetent, bitter, twisted and slightly over-enthusiastic with the power tools. He's very professional. I've just been screwed around with a fair bit.

A typical late starter, I only got my braces when I was 17. Mind you, I'd been on the waiting list for five years. FIVE! Apparently I had 'interesting teeth' which was funny, as what made them interesting was that there were eight of them naturally absent. A genetic quirk, eight adult teeth gone awol and nothing to push the baby teeth out the way, so they just stayed there. Thankfully, four of the missing eight were wisdom teeth, so no need for extraction or any such malarkey. Finally, after all this time I am shown one year into a room of thirty postgrad orthodontic students and am assigned to one called Popadopaloupadaris* who then fits me with full train tracks, top and bottom.

Each time she makes an adjustment, we wait until the one qualified orthodontist can come round and check her work. This is a painstaking process, but finally it is done. I am be-braced!

Talking of pain, even though I was 17 I got treated like a small child. I got the typical 'lie to children' that having braces fitted 'hurts a bit for a few days, but it isn't that bad really and it soon goes away.'

For two days I went through pain so maddeningly intense and constant that I felt like a dog and wanted to smash my muzzle repeatedly against the wall until the pain stopped - not only this, but the intense pain was tinged with a maddening edge of pleasure. My brain overloaded and desperate to permanently shut down, I suddenly remembered I wasn't a small child anymore. I could take a shitload of painkillers. I duly did, and the world became a much happier place.

It was my last year in sixth form. I was scheduled to go on my gap year at the end of that summer, and thought it would be best to tell them this. they weren't best pleased.

"What do you mean you're going abroad for a year? Why did you start your orthodontic treatment now, this is very irresponsible!"

I coughed.

"I've been on your waiting list for five years..."
"Ah."

I was then told that there was nothing they could do for me while I was away and I'd have to find my own orthodontist (and pay for it) while I was there. Bugger. They weren't even going to try and put me in touch with anyone. Luckily, I found a fantastic orthodontist who knew exactly what she was doing. Private - expensive. I had a monthly budget, and monthly visits. Basically ever month I would take out a lump sum, the majority of which would go to paying the orthodontic bills. I would then eke out a living from the remainder. This orthodontist though, well, she helped me find a good dentist who did any work like extraction, etc, helped me work appointments around my studies and was generally really really nice.

I had to go to the dentist to have two of my baby teeth pulled out, and (as always happens) the conversation started right as he had his hands in my mouth. I began to tell him my tale of orthodontic woe. He listened, and as the story progressed he gave me a look as if I'd come from some kind of third world country and had had to walk three miles barefoot to the nearest witch-doctor before giving birth to a two-headed goat.

Finally, it was time to go back. I'd been out of the country for two years (looking back now, this is lucky) and I was nearing the end of treatment. My orthodontist had invented a small device using memoflex wire (the bendy memory-retaining wire they use in the unsquashable glasses frames) to pivot the root of one of my teeth upright, the others were all straight. We said our goodbyes and I said I'd try and visit if I ever went back.

"You should be out of braces in a couple of months. Don't let them take the extra memoflex wire off unless they can give you a really good reason - good luck!"

I arrive home. My next NHS orthodontic appointment - the first thing they do is take off the memoflex

"wait, why are you taking it off?"
"It's ok, your root's pivoted enough"
"...hmmm..."

They are the professionals, you can't argue. It's defintiely not because it's something unorthodox that theyve never seen before and are therefre removing because they don't really knwo whatthe hell it is. They wield the power tools. They then tell me the braces should be off by December.

"December? But it's July!"
"Yes, well, you can't rush these things. Of course, that's not a definitive date you understand, we'll have to see how it goes..."

It is now November. I went to the Orthodontist last week.

"I think it'll be two more visits until they're off"
*thinks* but there's a couple of months between each visit!
"ok...what're the bends you're making in my bracewire for?"
"Oh, well the root of your tooth needs to be pivoted," he explains, as if I had been totally unaware of this fact, "We need to have the most possible room if we're going to put something in!"

SO. Now my teeth hurt like hell because last week the orthodontist (who is still in charge of 30 postgrads btw) put bloody BENDS in my bracewire to try and shoddily do the job of the device they removed this summer which was ALREADY DOING WHAT THEY'RE JUST STARTING TO ATTEMPT NOW, because they had no idea what it was and whether it would really work. Plus, I'm now thinking Feb. or maybe March before they come off, let alone thinking of replacing the missing teeth.

I'm getting married in July. Click 'I like this' and maybe the bastards will have sorted me out by then.


*Ok, ok, I couldn't pronounce it when I scrutinised her name tag every time I saw her, so I have no idea what her real last name was...
( Hampster Squared has stuff at www.tilla.co.uk, Sun 5 Nov 2006, 22:51, Reply)

Pain? Who cares!
Look, this is pathetic, but here we go.
My dentist is a beautiful woman in her mid 30s with a chest which would have been quite at home in a 1950s sitcom... I'm talking big, perfectly formed and big. And big.
And she insists on the gas and lets you play your own CDs while she works...
So basically when she leans over to start work on my mouth and I'm slightly off my bean with some of my favourite tunes blaring away and the eighth and ninth wonders of the world in my face to be quite honest I couldn't care less whether she starts drilling with a jackhammer.
I'm thinking of flossing with a mouldy bootlace in the hope of encouraging dental problems.
Oh yes and her name is Dr Zongas. No kidding
( difficultchild, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 0:01, Reply)

In addition to "4 Years of Continuous Pain"...
Once whilst having a mould taken of my lower jaw, my dentist was prodding around to make sure it was pushed in properly. He accidentally prodded one of my sublingual salivary glands in the process.

Cue a spectacular jet of saliva arcing gracefully a good six feet across the room and hitting his assistant in the back of the neck.

GO SPIT GLANDS!!!!!
( Spazzcat jam out with your clam out, Fri 10 Nov 2006, 0:03, Reply)

Im going to the dentist tomorrow
there will be pain, tears, needles, screams,blood and fear that will shake you to your deepest core.....

But at least it wont be me in the chair suckers!



(im a dental nurse)
(Legs 11 last got some loving on, Sun 5 Nov 2006, 17:43, Reply)

Me too
Maggiebloome - I too have a tooth in my wallet, but mine is one i found from one of my koi carp.
I need a life.

Aaanyhoo, main story time.
I had to go to hospital to have part of my upper jaw drilled away, due to an abcess caused by an infected root in a tooth that had accidently helped stop a fast moving cricket ball ten years previously (resulting in tears, blood, pain, a bit of wee and lots of dental visits. Top cricket tip - use your hands not your face when wicketkeeping, it hurts less).
I had to have seven injections in my mouth. The six in my top gums were ok painwise, but the one into the roof of my mouth was the most painful injection i have ever had. Several unintentional tears appeared instantly in my eyes, causing the dentist to ask 'Sorry, did that hurt?', with the reply ' yymff eef fuurrken dddd'
Anyway, the roof of my mouth got sliced open, as well as my front gum, everything got pulled back, bone got drilled out and i got stitched back up.
Then i had to go to the hospital pharmacy to get antobiotics etc. The young lady came to the counter and smiled nicely at me. I smiled back, and she screamed.
'have you just had a mouth operation?'
'yes, why'
'because you look like a vampire after a meal, and blood is dripping down onto your shirt'.

I had wondered why people were letting me walk down the corridors without having to move to one side.
(turtles head is touching cloth poked a dwarf on the forehead at, Sat 4 Nov 2006, 19:23, Reply)

I was an evil dentist
When I was five I knocked one of sister's teeth out.

It's not as bad as it sounds - firstly it was a dead milk tooth that was practically hanging off her gum and secondly she asked me to do it.

I'm not sure she expected it straight away though. She said "I wish someone would knock this tooth out"

"Ok" I said and hit her.

I still think that I deserve half of the money she got from the tooth fairy.

Often when I see her, I remind her that she owes me 5p. The tooth fairy was a stingy git round our way.
(Wascally Weasel now with 100% fewer jokes., Fri 3 Nov 2006, 16:27, Reply)

Tales from the surgery - squitty mouth !
One day a nice chavvy lady bought her equally chavvy son to our surgery, insisiting that "Ee needs to see the Doctor straightaway 'is marf as rottid !!" After a poke about and surpressed gagging from both myself and dentist, he turns to the lady and calmly tells her that her darling son is suffering from pyorrhea (advanced gum disease). She replied with a totally straight face "Is that why 'is breff stinks o' shit then ?"
( rabbitz, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 14:34, Reply)

The gas
Laughing gas is great, after breathing it deep for a few minutes and the dentist lowers the big light over your gob...and you realise its made by 'siemens'. Cue uncontrolable fits of schoolboy giggles while having a mouthfull of very pointy things.
(menashem, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 13:15, Reply)

My girlfriend said that if I came up with a good answer for QOTW on time, she'd shag me.

( Malchick, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 12:05, Reply)

Nietzsche's Dentist
Was called Herr E Knackers. True story.
(frankspencer, Thu 9 Nov 2006, 14:38, Reply)

Orthodontics
When I was little, my teeth were in a state, to put it lightly. They were monstrous because I'd been ill as an infant, which somehow wrecked the enamel on the adult teeth forming inside my gums, so when the baby teeth fell out the new ones came in crooked and discoloured. Genetics were not on my side, either. Something had to be done.

...And by something, I mean over a decade of every orthodontic appliance known to man. The worst were the expansion devices meant to widen my upper jaw. They looked similar to this and I had two of them for a total of maybe three years. Every couple days I'd have to use a little metal "key" to turn a wheel in the centre, which would push my jaw apart little by little. The part in the centre was always getting peanuts stuck in it. At one point I couldn't remove the offending nut no matter how many implements I stuck up there, and it started rotting - nasty. The really bad part was, when I had the expander the second time, I started getting terrible pains down the centre of my nose, and I had to get x-rays done to make sure it wasn't SPLITTING APART MY NOSE. Thankfully, it wasn't.

Because the device has to be cemented to some of your upper teeth to keep it in place, it is HELL having it removed. The orthodontist takes pliers and twists and pulls until the cement stuff cracks. I screamed so loud on the second occasion that the next day someone came up to me in school and said, "I heard you at the orthodontist's...you sounded like you were dying."

Then I had to wear an awful tooth positioner when I was at home. It's a giant rubber slab you're supposed to bite into really hard. It worked just fine until my brother made me laugh and I started choking on it.

And of course I had the brace, upper and lower. But that was just a small part compared to all the other shit! However, for a while I had to hook tiny rubber bands onto the brace brackets to correct my bite, which stopped me opening my mouth wide enough to talk clearly. Arse.

Don't forget two different types of headgear to be worn only at night (thank god - look at these monstrosities). The first was similar to this but had a vertical bar running down the centre. It meant that I had to sleep with a bath towel under my jaw because otherwise I would keep stabbing myself in that little hollow between the clavicles. The second was more like this. (No, that's definitely not me in either photo!)

I'm still supposed to wear this horrible rigid plastic retainer thing at nights because I can still feel my teeth moving around a bit, but to tell you the truth I'm sick of it. All those years and they still move around, so what's the point. And for my troubles, I started grinding my teeth as a result of wearing these things. Grrrr. I also have a wire permanently cemented along the inside of six of my bottom teeth. In total, five of my baby teeth had to be pulled because they just WOULD NOT FALL OUT. The adult one would grow in right in front of it, so I'd have two in one spot. And my wisdom teeth were a nightmare to get out - full general anaestheic, thank you very much.

But on the plus side, with some additional sealants and fillings for cavities caused by the weakened enamel, my teeth look rather good now.

No apologies for length...I suffered for it!
( KersaI Missive Free Michael Shields! with Monday's Liverpool Echo, Thu 9 Nov 2006, 5:02, Reply)

take off your clothes please...
I had to get two teeth pulled out and it required day surgery, not just a visit to the dentist. So anyways, i turned up and was asked to take my clothes off and put on a dressing gown. I sort of thought to myself "Why do I need to take my clothes off to have 2 teeth out" but i considered that they were the ones who had the degree in dentistry (or similar) and probably knew what they were doing... So off came my clothes, on went the (rather revealing) dressing gown that barely hid bollocks and I went and sat back down. After sitting down for about 5 minutes another man came in and was told to do the same thing but I noticed when he came out he was still wearing his pants so I decided I better ask the nurse if I was meant to have kept my pants on.

Well it turns out I *was* but it was too late to change as the doctor had just called for me. Luckily for me, and sadly for you sick bastards, I don't think anything happened and I just woke up 5 hours later feeling a bit uncomfortable lying in a public ward with no pants on.
(lewisyoufools, Sun 5 Nov 2006, 16:50, Reply)

You can't have an appointment
My last dentist was useless, but she had a receptionist that surpassed her.

I don’t like chocolate, which makes desserts and so forth a lot of fun:-
“Are you sure there’s no chocolate in this ice cream?”
“Yes.”
*bites into ice cream*
“There’s chocolate chips in this!”
“They don’t count, surely?”

Anyhow, one Xmas while tucking into a box of quality street (read- taking all the toffees out and eating them) and *crunch* there’s something hard in my mouth. There’s no nuts in the toffee... One of my teeth has broken in two.

As I’m on holiday I’m nowhere near my dentist so I wait until I’m back in Edinburgh before calling the dentist and asking for an appointment.

Me: Hello, I’m calling to make an appointment with the dentist.
Receptionist: Are you registered to this practice?
Me: Yes, I’m Miss greenycrimson..
Receptionist: Let me check our records. I see you have an appointment booked with the dentist in 4 months.
Me: Yes, I know but I do actually need to see the dentist this week.
Receptionist: Well, as you’ve got that 4 month appointment I can’t schedule you an appointment with the dentist any sooner than that.
Me: Yes, but-
Receptionist: There’s no possible way of getting you a sooner appointment, we’re very busy this time of year and you can’t hope to ring up and see the dentist at the drop of a hat.
Me: I understand, but-
Receptionist: Well then, you’ll just have to be patient until then.
Me: Listen to me you stupid wench, I very much doubt that anyone rings up and makes a dental appointment for a check up when they’ve already got one due in four months for no damn reason! I have broken a tooth. The enamel is gone. If you would be so kind I’d like to see the dentist.
Receptionist: *small voice* We can fit you in tomorrow.

Though I’m certain she told the dentist I’d been rude to her- the daft bitch made the filling too big so it rubbed against the tooth above it, scraping off the enamel so it then developed a cavity and I needed a second filling.

Dentists- they’re failed doctors who thought there was too much to learn about the body, so they just settled for knowing not very much about the jaw.
(greenycrimson I stole the from pyschotherapist, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 14:01, Reply)

Needlephobic ex
I hope this comes out as funny as it was at the time.

One of my ex's has a severe needle phobia. So much so that even in her mid-20's, the usual method for her to have fillings was to get knocked out with gas. Hardly ideal, and generally frowned upon. Also, due to her weight it had other health issues.

So one day, she was told "no more". She needed a rotting tooth removed and the dentist told her she'd have to have an injection. Even at the thought she went green. The told her they'd drug her instead - using some kind of Opiate.

I volunteered to take her to the dentist's and her mum would collect her afterwards. It took a while to get her in, but finally she sat in the waiting room and then we were called in.

To start with, they put one of those big needled into the back of her hand. At least she could look away from that. Once that was in, a doctor arrived with a syringe full of milky-looking stuff. This he injected into her via the needle in her hand.

Ten minutes later she was fucking wasted.

It was like she'd gone through a bottle of white wine on an empty stomach. Complete regression to 5 year-old status. Giggling, pointing, laughing and unable to walk.

We got her onto the dentist's chair and he asker her to open her mouth so he could inject her gums. She clenched her mouth and shook her head. "OK, I'll pinch her nose and when she needs to breathe, we'll get the needle in."

At this she just popped her mouth open and went "BLAAAAAAAHHHH!" drooling everywhere.

10 minutes later, the gum was numb. The pliers went in. The tooth came out.

5 minutes after that, she was telling the nurse that there were four of me, that they all smelled of poo and when was the dentist going to take her tooth out?

Her mum had fun with her back home. It took a few hours for her to come down, and she kept trying to walk upstairs by herself whenever her mum turned her back.

Apologies for length, but even being hung like a donkey and knowing what to do with it didn't stop my most recent ex dumping me for a fucking lawyer.
(Mosh Worldwide traveller and random mentalist, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 8:55, Reply)

continuation of treatment
I guess I did rant on a little, and I imagine that in reality most of you b3tans are the type of patients I like treating, being I would guess mostly quite intellegent, reasonable good humoured people. My issue is with the thankless scallies who make up 8/10ths of the population.

Yeah maybe my views are a little draconian and I am a bit jaded sometimes, but often a patient feels better when they leave my surgery than when they came in and that makes me a happy man.

Also my working hours do not allow me to regularly view Trisha and Jeremy Kyle, though I understand that they do make compelling telly.
(Calfderno, Thu 9 Nov 2006, 18:32, Reply)

Slightly embarassing.
I had to have something or other done about half a year back, and I'd gone in fairly stoned. He tipped the chair back and I closed my eyes as he leaned over me and started working on my teeth.

I opened my eyes a couple of minutes in, looked at the dentist still looming over me and thought 'Ooh he does look just like Hugh Laurie, doesn't he?' and burst into a fit of giggles that lasted a good five minutes.

He though I was a right pillock.
(sporky, Tue 7 Nov 2006, 17:22, Reply)