Tale from the Dentist Chair

I am not a woman that is scared of pain. I have had a homebirth for goodness sake. I also once let a woman who was learning to take blood have four goes at finding my vein (count it 1-2-3-4) but there is something about the dentist which inspires its own type of terror in my heart.

A while ago I was having some pain in my mouth. I had a feeling that it was a dodgy crown thanks to the last dodgy dentist I had seen, so I chose a new dentist to look at it. The issue wasn't with my crown but with the filling in the tooth next to it. She pulled the filling out and put a temporary one in and said to come back in 6 months.

Jump forward to earlier this week (which is apparently 2.5 years later) I had been noticing that my temporary filling was starting to disintegrate but in true 'Me' form kept putting off making an appointment. Then yesterday it started to hurt a little and I realised it had finally given up. So I made the appointment.

I was going to fill you in on all the awful details but I will summerise;

* 4 Needles

* New dental nurse who didn't seem to realise that she was pulling my mouth almost to the point of tearing with the sucky thing

* The dentist pointing out all of the issues with my teeth

* Me feeling like a naughty school girl for a. not flossing my teeth b. not going to the dentist every 6 months

* The dentist telling me that I was very sensitive (yes hello you have 4 hands and 3 instruments in my mouth)

* tears running down my cheeks while I was a. feeling very vulnerable b. being hurt c. wondering if this guy was just trying to make money out of my mouth.

So now here I am, my mouth feels huge numb and yet still sore. I just spilled my coffee because my lips aren't working properly. I am meant to make another 'maintenance' appointment but don't want to cause every time you go to the dentist its humiliating painful and scary.

Im sure that if I went more regularly then not all of my memories of the dentist would be so traumatic .... maybe I'll make the appointment after a good nights sleep or a few glasses of wine