Either lies or negligence
I've always had rubbish teeth, inherited off my Mum (who got her first denture at SIXTEEN), meaning an early entry into the joy of dental abcesses. I'd had three teeth out under general anaesthetic before I was 9. Inevitably, I got lots of fillings in my brand new adult teeth.

Anyhow, at age 16, I go for a routine check-up and my new dentist (at the same practice as my previous one) decides to give me an x-ray, just to check "if anything's wrong".

Lo and behold, it turns out ALL the fillings I'd had from my previous dentist had been rubbish. According to my new one, six of them still had teeny pockets of decay underneath the filling - I'm not sure how he could tell this from a blurry x-ray - and, brilliantly, that they'd all have to be replaced that day or I'd die or something.

What an afternoon of unbridled joy that turned out to be. SIX re-fillings in one day, leaving me with enamel the thickness of rice paper.

After all the work had been done, The dentist joyfully told me that I'd definitely need dentures before I was 30.

The same guy then gave me the world's ugliest root canal (when I was 17, on a canine) and made sure I had another two fillings before I reached 18 and was free to decide dental scheduling for myself.

Thinking about it, I should have sued the living shit out that practice for apparently fucking up so many fillings, but this was long before the likes of Claims Direct made you realise you could bleat for cash if something horrible happened to you that wasn't your fault. Fuck.

Needless to say, I didn't go to the dentist again until I was 31, when a brutal abcess got me this summer.

Thankfully, the emergency dentist did two extractions (because he wasn't sure which tooth was the culprit) with absolutely zero pain. Marvellous. The only horror there was the bill.

I now want steel teeth like Jaws. With diamond tips and stuff.
(redcamera, Mon 6 Nov 2006, 13:49, Reply)