Leader of the Plaque

My gums hurt. My jaw is sore. And feeling has just recently been restored to my nose, tongue and palate. Yes folks, I just spent two hours at the dentist, one of my least favorite places on Earth. No offense to my current dental professional. You'd think that years of orthodontia, tooth-pullings, etc. would inure me to the torture of the dental chair. But you'd be wrong. If anything, it's made things worse.

Now my current dentist is actually a pretty good guy (though anyone who chooses dentistry as a profession is automatically somewhat suspect). And he knows I'm not a fan. My white knuckled deathgrip on the reclining chair is a dead giveaway. He commented today while propping open my jaw that I seem to be more at ease than I used to be -- which... may be true but isn't necessarily saying much given that our first shared experience involved a root canal and pain that I can only describe as twanging my nerve endings like guitar strings, to which he responded with a casual "Hmm, the higher acidity from the infection tends to reduce the anesthetic's effectiveness. I'm going to need to inject some directly into your nerve."

So, given that I hadn't been in, even for a cleaning, in a couple years (yes, I know. I haven't exactly reconciled the necessity of regular visitations for the prevention of future such traumatic horrors with the vile loathing. It's not an easy balance to strike), we scheduled this one after last week's verification that my weird sinus issue wasn't a crippling tooth problem. And at that time we discussed a problem area I have with flossing that he said he'd take a look at and maybe replace the filling if necessary. Well it turns out he tricked me, the evil bastard genius.

After enough x-rays to give me brain cancer, as I tensely settled back for a little scraping and polishing, he instead pulled out this ginormous needle and, before I could object, shot me full of Lidocaine so I could go numb while he cleaned. On the upside, I was mostly droolingly deadened during the cleaning. However, he then proceeded to replace not one but three fillings. On two different sides.

In fairness, the extra two were ones we'd talked about years ago. My last remaining old amalgam one, for example. But since there was nothing actually wrong with it -- you know, other than the mercury -- I had balked at the time. So frankly I gotta give him credit since, as he assumed, I'd have run for the hills with any advanced warning. I guess I should be relieved that now, in one fell swoop, the last bit of necessary dental work has finally concluded. Barring a freak popcorn-coated carmel-apple accident or an unlikely-unless-you're-me leaky root canal tragedy, I can settle in to an uneasy routine of biannual cleanings with little to fear.

Or so I'm led to believe...