Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Escape from the Dentist's Chair
I don't know about everyone else, but when I get home after a dentist's appointment, I sometimes have a near-euphoric feeling of relief. Thank God it's over!!
I have been terrified of the dentist ever since I was a little girl. You see, my baby teeth came in without any enamel, which meant I had approximately one zillion cavities. I was also deathly afraid of needles. My mother and my dentist, in their infinite wisdom, decided to humor that fear. So I had all those cavities filled without anesthetic. You know that scene in "Marathon Man" that makes everyone cringe? (Shudder.) Now imagine it with a little girl under that drill.
Is it any surprise that as an adult, the dentist is my own personal bogeyman? It didn't help that the first time I had to have any serious dental work done (a root canal), my then-dentist told me that if I let myself get all scared about it, it would hurt like hell. Yeah, just the thing to say to make me relax!
I got a new dentist after that, and things are much better now. All I was having done today was a whole bunch of little fillings that I'd been procrastinating about, but she still gave me Valium and nitrous. Amazing how much less traumatic it is that way! (I really don't miss having the dental assistant hold me down while the dentist drilled away. And I would love to go back in time and slap my mom and my pediatric dentist silly for not insisting I get the Novocaine shots!)
So, yay, it's over! And thanks to drugs and gas, it really wasn't that bad at all. Now all I have to do is wait until the Novocaine wears off so I can feel like a real human being again.
Labels: dentist phobia
posted by Jenna Black @ 2:13 PM
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