When I go into a grocery store, I don’t get a bunch of clerks scolding me for buying cheddar cheese or fat-laden salad dressing or a bag of lime-flavored taco chips (god love ’em). If I go see a movie the ticket-taker doesn’t admonish me for watching such prurient trash.
How come it’s so hard to find a dentist who’ll just clean my teeth or fill my cavities and take my money without giving me the same tired lecture?
I’ve made a concerted effort in recent years to follow their advice.
Okay, first, I’ll admit it, in my misspent, well-spent young adulthood there were times I was not so concerned with dentistry. Sometimes, at bed time, what was foremost in my mind was not flossing, all right? I’d make a tongue-in-cheek joke about the cavities I was concerned with filling, but we’ll keep this G rated.
And I brushed like a fiend. I really did.
Flossing, not so good. I admit it, and have now, for years, attempted to make amends and followed their advice and opened my mouth and my checkbook accordingly.
My doctor has perhaps more cause to scold me over cholesterol and skin cancer issues, but we can do the check-up without filling most of our time discussing the fat contents of blue cheese salad dressing (a weakness, I admit).
And I’ve bought the sonicare vibrating toothbrush that buzzes sudsy toothpaste around my mouth like a tiny manic masseuse with a buffing machine. I floss. I use this toothpick holder contraption they gave me to gently trace around my gumlines (“wood is fibrous, like a sponge,” he said, “and it cleans out the plaque”). I even rinse with diluted hydrogen peroxide every so often.
Then the hygienist comes in and wants to critique the angle I hold the toothbrush and then the dentist comes in and says never mind that it’s how you hold the toothpick holder.
Oh, you’re making progress, they say. But there’s still this spot over here. I’m afraid you need to come back and give us some more of your money and your insurer’s money, they smile.
Whatever gets me in the end, maybe the cholesterol, maybe the skin cancer, maybe a belligerent country-western or rap-crazed maniac in an SUV, I seem destined to leave this lovely, warming, unpredictable, troubled world with a marvelous set of teeth.
Before I leave, I’d just like to find a dentist from whom I can buy his service without getting a lecture, too.
this is probably exactly why so many people only go there once every 3 years or so… lol
accept me as i am, and i may come back and give you more money. make me feel like a child being lectured at, and i will wait until i have to come.
but then, maybe theres a strategy to that. if people dont come in for regular care, they probably make more in the end on the larger bills they get when things get bad enough to make them come in.
rather odd..
Yes, aside from the lecture I think they hurt us on purpose, its like some sort of oath they take when they finish dentist school.
sadistic bastards.
blueraindrop, yes, I think you’ve hit on the strategy they’re employing to hook me.
Red, so-called “pain-free” dentistry has improved things, at least for my mouth. It’s the extractions from my other end that pains me most.
I swear they’ve upped their rates to take in all of what they can get from the dental insurers — and we still pay out of pocket what they used to charge, too.
Aren’t dentists failed medical doctors? Because they can’t help you will important medical problems, as they had hoped to when deciding on a career, they get in their lectures where they can.
The whole sales thing in dentistry is sickening. I had to go through three dentists to find one who didn’t want to redo fillings and redo caps and put something in the crevices so I wouldn’t get cavities and bleach and make my teeth longer…my gosh, it’s a scam. They’re taking advantage of the obsession most people have with looking beautiful.
OK, I have to admit that after my ranting comment, I went and flossed my teeth 8).
lololol I loved this. I pictured you saying this and giving a wicked little wink.
Stevo, I’ve no idea of their educational background, but I’ll bet most of them are utterly compulsive and fastidious. On my last dental visit I noticed something amiss in this sort of decorative scaffolding he had up by his ceiling. Some of it held track lighting, but off to one side two of the rails or tubes had come undone. I pointed this out to the hygenist. She looked quickly and and exclaimed “oh my god [the dentist] will just freak when he sees that.”
yb, I agree. And I’m getting a second opinion on their prescribed fix, too. In addition to wanting to take advantage, I think enough people now are taking care of their teeth so that their resorting to these measures to keep busy.
Thanks, Am. What’s the point of having a
if you can’t look back on it fondly?
*wink*
Believe it or, I really like my dentist. His philosophy? A high patient is a happy patient. Want some wine? A valium? (probably won’t give both together, I’m guessing). Let’s strap on the nitrous and tuck you in with this blankie. Oh lecture away, doc, lecture away. I’m somewhere warm and fuzzy and far, far away. It’s the closest I get these days to my misspent youth.
LOL, LB. Not just a dentist, but sounds like a magical mystery tourguide, too. *smile*