My Orthodontists
was a drunk Irish man whos breath smelt of whisky.
(site_history_log, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 16:00, Reply)

4 years of continuous pain
As a child I was inflicted with a combination of genes that meant, according to my dentist's little chart of Anglo-Saxon jaw and tooth sizes going back through history, I had fucking massive teeth in very small jaws. This meant that my upper secondary incisors were behind my lower canines, all my lower incisors were in a straight line about a centimetre further back than they should have been, my front teeth were at a forty-five degree angle pointing at my shoulder and, were my wisdom teeth ever to come through, they would not only make my teeth even more crowded but they would come out at 90 degrees - effectively growing into the insides of my cheeks. I was fitted with an expandable plate and given a little set of keys. Every Sunday night I turned a key in each little screw on the plate, expanding it by a quarter of a millimetre in three directions, then forced it back into the roof of my mouth. I did this for two years. The reason? I would have needed so many teeth out that I'd have been left with virtually no teeth and a collapsed jaw from the resulting incorrect bite. Instead I had my skull expanded by over two centimetres (I think it was the most extreme attempt at doing this at the time) - make the skull fit the teeth rather than the other way round. I also had my lower jaw expanded to match using a wire frame which was adjusted by my dentist every month.

Anyway, once my teeth reached the point where my secondary incisors needed to be pushed over my bottom teeth, I had to wear this built-up thing on my back teeth for six months that prevented me from closing my mouth properly. I sounded like the Elephant Man.

Once all THAT was over I moved onto fixed braces - at first I needed spring bridges and fuck knows what else while bits were moved around but after two years of THAT I got those off and I now have two to three years of wearing clear plastic retainers.

It was probably the most excruciating 4 years of my life and I hated my dentist for ages but my massive overcrowding and sunken face have been transformed into straight teeth and good cheekbones so I can't show him anything except gratitude.

Apologies for length but it was four fucking years for God's sake.
( Spazzcat jam out with your clam out, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 15:46, Reply)

Pulled a tasebud out
Weebear1975 spoke of a helix thingy and I can only assume she had the same paraphernalia in her mouth as me.

As a thumb sucking addict I too was given tracks for my goofy teeth (I had the set - blonde dodgy afro style Christmas tree hair, goofy teeth and puppy fat). I also had this piece of metal put in to prevent me being able to get any suction (ahem) when I put my thumb in. I likened it to the element in a light bulb. It looked like a capital W hanging in the centre of my mouth.

Yes it stopped me sucking my thumb but it also meant I had to relearn how to talk and eat. But the horrors go on…….

My tongue was forever getting stuck in it and one day the instrument hit back by stealing from me a taste bud.

You know how it feels to have a burn taste bud - i.e. your whole head feels it.. Well this thing was pulled out but attached and I could experience the whole range of hideous sensation and pain till I reached in and ripped it off.

Had a hole in my tongue for ages after that.

Mind you because of the goofy teeth I taught myself amazing tongue trickery…..perhaps save that for xmas parties…..
(Squishie, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 14:55, Reply)

not very brave
Was told years ago that my gums are pretty much the size of a kids - draw your own conclusions. Anyway, the dental hospital told me after a series of x rays and much poking about (fnarr) that there was nowhere for my wisdoms to go and they should be removed...
I have seen the hamster faced victims of wisdom teeth removal and mine are still burrowing into my immature gums thank you very much...

Now rinse and spit (and dribble over your jumper)
(Siouxfan I'm not staring at you, I am just short sighted, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 14:40, 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)

While I was in the chair...
Start of a course of several sessions of treatment, since I have rubbish teeth and needed 4 or 5 fillings. All goes well, first couple of fillings in one corner of the mouth are done, and I emerge from the surgery to find everyone in the waiting room clustered around the TV. This was just before 2pm (BST) on September 11th, 2001...

And another...
Another series of fillings, a few years later. One of which turned out to be particularly deep, as the pain from the cavity was what had caused me to go in in the first place (after having to wait and re-register after my registration had been allowed to lapse). The filling didn't work, and I was still in pain, so I was given 2 options:
- Root canal treatment. £75, 2 hours in the chair, and only about a 50% chance of success
- Take the tooth out. £10, half an hour, job done.
Bit of a no-brainer, really. So I had the tooth out. On 21st December 2004 IIRC. The morning before going out to the pub for a family Christmas meal, with a bloody hole in my mouth where a molar used to be, and strict instructions from my dentist to avoid chewing and alcohol. Arse.

Another check-up looming 2 weeks today...
(Potedeian, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 14:15, Reply)

Tormenting patients
Have many "hilarious" tales from my days a dental nurse/hygienist. My favourite was when I worked for Mr Sims (the best dentist in the world with a sense of humour to match - in the summer he used to suck irritating flies fresh from the air down the spitoon).Anyway, one day a poor old fella who'd not been to the dentist in about forty years and had three teeth left wandered into the surgery in utter agony and was literally messing himself with the fear. Says he "ah know ah'v gotta 'av em out Sir, but yer'll not 'urt me will yer ? Me last dentist were a BUTCHER !!! YER NOT A BUTCHER ARE YER !!!!???"

Quick a flash my nurse-in-crime Britt pipes up "Now tell him the truth Mr Dewhurst...."

Oh and the day another trainee hygienist ran screaming from the surgery yelping that the "roof off his mouth fell off !!!" - she had attempted a full scale and polish with squirty water jet de-scaler before the patient had taken their partial dentures out.

Many many more tales to come....
( rabbitz, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 14:13, Reply)

Dentist
Many, many years ago when I was a student I had three wisdom teeth removed as they weren't growing properly. This was attempted by a young, very slight dental student who couldn't shift them so a larger, beefier version was brought in for the full knee-in-chest experience. When the anaesthetic wore off - agony! I was told not to take aspirin, so all there was were variants of paracetemol, these being the dark ages before ibuprofen. Paracetemol does not work on me so went to quacks in agony and was prescribed - oh yes - another version of paras. Do doctors ever listen? Finally found the only effective painkiller available to me - alcohol.
That night in th pub - glass of wine in one hand (with a straw in) and glass of whiskey in the other (also with straw). I think it worked, but my memory of that time is a little unreliable.......
(misspiggy In danger of having to get a job, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 14:11, Reply)

My first visit
My dentist notes from my first visit read only thus:

"Rhye is naughty. He kicked me."

I was four and terrified.
(Rhye, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 14:07, 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)

Just before heading to uni...
My dentist decided I needed attractive train track braces when I was just about to turn nineteen. NINETEEN!

He said I was "dentally retarded".
(beelee, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 13:25, Reply)

Dr Sleigh
So, local hospital and local anaesthetic for three wisdom teeth. Joy.

The unfortunately named dental torturer then proceeds to kneel on my chest whilst pulling my cheeks back so far I look like fucking Wallace with Wensleydale.

Suffice to say three days later it all goes manky with pus tasting like rotten meat leaking into a mouth that is so swollen I can only feed painkillers in under my upper and over my lower front teeth.

First post over.....

Phew!
(hobnails on yer nuts, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 13:24, Reply)

orthodontists oh no
my orthodontist was a nice enough woman, apart from the goats skull she had on her all and looking like a vampire.

anyway im 13 years old and not looking forward to getting braces, i already have glasses and curly hair metal mouth would be the final insult!!!, so i go to the orthodontist for my first appointment.

On peering into my mouth the orthodontist decides i need an xray, this xray shows that i still have some beby teeth and antoher rogue toth growin out of the roof of my mouth, which will need to be removed before the metal can gon in me gob.

Three months later i am off to hosptial for the gob op, i get a day off school and a general anesthetic, wooo! the operation went well and i cam out and waited for my butchered mouth to recover before going for a second xray.

The second Xray reveals that not only are my babty teeth STILL there but that so is the mental mouth tooth, it turns out that the clever doctors at worcester royal infirmary had had a lovely day carving a nice big hole into my gum and then filling it back up with gauze, for the craic like!

I have the second operation a month later, i am xrayed directly afterwards and this time the offending teeth are gone, but they have left a sizable bit of gum flapping around inside my mouth, which needs to be removed, bear ion mind that over the past two months i had had two general anesthetics and this was only a day after the second, the clever doctors decide not to bother with local to remove the gum and just whip it out with a scalpel whils attempting to engage me in converstion about Dr Who, the bastards. I diddnt eat for about 2 weeks because of the pain and lost 2 and a half stone.

I love dentists i wish i could go to one now, it beats dieting and excersise by a long shot, but my teeth are still crooked and the vampire orthodontist never got all the glue off, id have me teeth cleaned but i know i am going to need fillings and possible a root canal if a dentist looked in side my cakehole so i am waiting to win the lottery before i go, either that or be on the dole.

in an unrelated story my mate was once so skint and in need of dental treatment that he went for dantal surgery but refused to pay for the painkilling injection, fair play to him he got through it but he said the pain was so bad that in order to stop himself screaming he had to pinch himslf on the chest, he was bruised for a month, last time he went he got hyper painkillers sensible if you ask me
(superkitty is neither super nor a kitty, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 13:21, 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)

Spookily
....I also have an appointment at 4.40 today, and what do you know, my back molar has started playing up. AND I bugger off to Spain for a week tomorrow which is all pointing to something nasty or/and disappointing!!
(McPhisto, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 13:08, Reply)

When I was younger
I wanted to go to the dentist merely to try out the happy gas. Then when I got there I got NONE. Instead I got 2 friggin' great big needles. Not impressed.

Length? They went through my mouth and out the back of my head!
(satellite blows, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 13:02, Reply)

ah Jim lad
Not only did my dentist mangle my teeth, carve up my gums with a drill or two and rip open my tongue to expose nerves . . him and all the other dentists formed a chain gang had a ceremonial 3 hour ATM session on me while i was under the gas.

Have you seen Marathon Man? surprised no-ones mentioned that yet.

is it safe?
(Halfy By light alone, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 12:54, Reply)

My Dentist
He once looked in my mouth and tutted, and said, "oh no, they'll all have to come out"

I was so scared until I realised he was joking.
Grrr.
( Didyoumissme1, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 12:49, Reply)

i have an appointment at 3.15, some nice stories before then please
.
(Barry Big Fist, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 12:48, Reply)

My sister's a dentist...
... so I get free dental treatment from her. Great - althought it'd a bit scary when she's got a big feckin' needle stuck in your mouth.

Anyhoo - when she was studying at the dental hospital, I was due to go in and get a filling one morning. I arrived stinking of booze from the night before, hadn't washed and pretty much passed for a tramp.

Got to the floor she was on, and parked myself on the appropriate chair - let it recline back and nodded off.

Woken up shortly later by security when one of my sisters friends thought I was really a tramp who had come in for a cheeky nap.

She was pretty mad at me, and I'm fairly sure used a little less anaesthetic than usual when she did the filling. Didn't feel a thing, though ... the residual booze more than filled in for the missing drugs.
(davidpfitz, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 12:46, Reply)

I don't mind dentists
but orthodontists are a different story. Age 13 had to get spacers put between all my back teeth. It feels like you have popcorn stuck in your teeth. All the time.

When i was having them taken out, the ortho leaned in, was trying for about half a minute to get a particularly difficult one loose, and suddenly i felt a lovely wet spot of her middle-aged salivary fluid seep through my t-shirt.

I was stunned, didn't say anything. I can only presume she didn't notice, as she didn't say a word either. Had to walk downstairs and through the reception area with a noticable pearl of gob sagging off me.

I only remembered this after i saw the same thing in Curb Your Enthusiasm. Wish i did the same as he!

*Thrust!*
(RitalinFreak is dying in a clichéd manner, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 12:41, Reply)

The TERROR!
I went to my dentist for my yearly check up!

Dentist: ''Nice teeth''

Me: ''Thanks''

Dentist: ''See you next year''

The horror!!!!!!!!
(ruud316, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 12:38, Reply)

My dentist killed my girlfriend
My best mate is a dentist, apart from being an upstanding member of society who can sign your passport photos, he was also a heavy clubber. We used to all go out, so he knew my girlfriend was also a clubber too.
So, she has severe wisdom teeth problems, so in she goes for a free extraction. My mate, knowing that she has a certain resistance to drugs, when giving her a general aneasthetic, gives her a little bit more to ensure it works.
Half way through the extraction she stops breathing. And keeps on stops breathing. My mate panics, clambers on her, and repeatedly slaps her around the face to bring her to.
Which she does.
Thankfully the pain of the tooth being removed masked the pain of the repeatedly slapped face.
He doesn't remove wisdom teeth any more.
Thankfully that wasn't the day he went into work on a microdot.
Dentists, eh? What are they like?
( gadjie, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 12:36, Reply)

The wonders of the NHS
I too also had awful 'mongus' teeth, and at the tender age of 12 had to have a NHS brace (ie. big and dark like an oh-so industrial looking dark and big thing). When the refurbishments were fininshed the dentist proudly looked on and commented at the good job he'd done - and he had.

But he never sorted out a retaining device so over the years they slowly drifted apart like so many turds in a duck pond.

After spending a long time as a skint student with wonky teeth and zero self confidence I finally got them all straightened again at a private dentist, who has sorted out a retainer for both sets.

Moral of the story - Kids, don't let your NHS dentist forget about the retainer it'll ruin your life.

god that's a shit story - sorry.
(cherry B, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 12:34, Reply)

My mother once heard me screaming in the dentist's chair.
I was 8, and under general anaesthetic for an extraction. She was in the waiting room.

She casually mentioned the screams to me years later, having done nothing at the time. I didn't know anything about it.

In those days, anyone in a white coat was God so whatever they were doing to her unconscious daughter must have been OK.

It still haunts me a little that she heard me screaming but didn't even think to ask what had happened.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 12:28, Reply)

Reason for it all
Dentist are pain causing bastards, because they are resentful they weren't clever enough to be surgeons.

Tell them that just before you go for your next filling, and you'll see just how true it is!
(turtles head is touching cloth poked a dwarf on the forehead at, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 12:20, Reply)

weebear1974...
I had one of those headgear thingies too... the skullcap wasn't strong enough though so I got a neckstrap. thus it has left me with two things:

1. chisled square jaw (albeit receeding back bit by bit)

and

2. Permanent double chin. Fucksocks.
( Sonic James Doom forgetting the date since... umm..., Fri 3 Nov 2006, 12:07, 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)

weebear1974...
my brother had one of those overnight, over-head elastic band braces, due to his lower teeth biting over his top ones. over two years, he went from round-jawed gimp look to chisel-featured square jaw. didn't stop me teasing the bastard though by calling him 'twangy' all that time, though.
(niceandwarmandhot vive la résistance, Fri 3 Nov 2006, 12:00, Reply)