Dental Danger

NewYear’s resolutions often include a positive health statement. I am starting off 2025 with a barrage of health initiatives. Lose weight. Eat better. Exercise. Because I have crossed the senior threshold, it is important to take care of my teeth. I floss. I brush. I gargle. I don’t want to skip any step that might result in the dreaded tooth loss. Recently, I spent three hours in a dental chair. This gave me time to think. I thought about my new diet plan; I thought about past dental experiences. I thought about the posh dentist I went to in Arizona. It is all coming back in HD mental meandering. Throughout the office, the Arizona dentist had expensive wood paneling on the ceiling. Every patient had their own large screen TV in front of a comfy leather chair. He also had an assistant who started to prep the wrong side of my mouth. I said, “I think the Doctor is working on the right.”

             Dr K, feeling financially secure enough to have a cavalier attitude while drilling, liked to sing to his staff. They in turn would sing back a reply. I'm not making this up. It was sort of a Swiss yodeling communication with a disco beat. Afterward, I told my daughter, “The dentist was singing to his staff, where do they do that?” Her reply, “Scottsdale.” Is Scottsdale the only place someone can have a dental experience that will make their molars rattle? No. In Florida I went to a dentist who had a collection of dental signs in the waiting area. A realistic hobby for a dentist except these signs all had lights and movement. Smiles began and faded, lights were flashing everywhere, it was sort of a dental arcade experience. Even at the reception desk, there was a moving miniature dentist brushing. “This is very different,” I said handing my new patient forms to the woman sentenced to work there. Expressionless and without looking up she said, “The doctor likes it.”

             I thought longingly of the mild mannered, military trained dentist who had treated my family for over twenty years. He retired. What a great dentist. He retired the year I divorced. An important caring man was gone from my life. While searching for a replacement, I had the nerve to ask one dentist not to give me X-rays. He told me to leave and threatened to call the police. “Leave now or I will call the police.” I attract this type of person. I wasn’t loud, rude or demanding. I simply said, “Please no X-rays.” Dentists like to tell us that we get less harmful radiation from X-rays than from sunlight. They overlook the fact that my skin was made for sunlight and the inside of my mouth was not.

             Back to Scottsdale. I am head down, feet up, dentist on the right, assistant on the left. Something is placed on my chest. Dentist to assistant, “Do not rest tools on the patient, she is not a table.” Slightly offended by the shape of my chest, I tense. A professional choice, the assistant does it again. Again, the dentist says, “Do not rest tools on the patient.” I want to sit up and say, “Didn’t you hear Dr. K? He said not to rest tools on the patient.” The process is finished, and the dentist leaves the room. He directs his assistant to do something inside my mouth. As soon as he leaves the room, she puts a tool on my chest. Defiant teenage behavior at best. Do I complain? Do I tell the dentist, “Your assistant disobeyed you.”? Saying nothing, I paid my bill and left. Why? Dental X-Rays must have done something to my brain.