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Why, oh why, did I not go into dentistry?

I was getting my molars scraped and poked last week, drool puddling on my chin and dripping onto my collar, when it occurred to me that being a dentist might just be the best job in the history of mankind. Unless you have a particular aversion to putting your fingers in and your face next to somebody’s filthy mouth, I can’t imagine a better one. It wouldn’t bother me in the least; having changed hundreds of Charles’s diapers, halitosis holds no terrors for me.

(I should point out that my dentist, Dr. Bond, is a fantastic tooth man; I’ve been seeing him for something like 20 years with no complaints, and one of these days he’s going to retire and I really don’t know what I’m going to do at that point.)

It seems like dentists have all the benefits of doctors (high salaries, exalted social status, cool acronyms after their names) but without most of the stresses. Doctors have sick people showing up all day, blowing germs on them; who goes to the dentist when they’re sick? Doctors have to deal with actual emergencies, like people getting shot or catching TB or something; dentists have to be on-call to replace chipped crowns. Worst of all, doctors occasionally have to tell people they’re going to die, or tell family members that somebody’s already dead. The worst thing a dentist is going to tell you is that your gingivitis has turned into periodontal disease and you’re going to need seven root canals and a gum scraping.

(I don’t really know what a gum scraping is, but my mom’s had a couple of ’em to reduce gum inflammation, and it apparently hurts quite a lot.)

Meanwhile, dentists get to make the same ridiculous money and buy the same awesome boats and beach homes as specialists. The only thing I can imagine being more lucrative is orthodontia, but then you have to deal with annoying children all day. (Having a child, I’ve found, does not decrease one’s disdain for poorly behaved kids. In fact it seems to heighten it.)

I wonder if HW would allow me to quit my job and go to dental school. We’d have to live in poverty for a while to pay off school loans. I’ll ask her later.

In a related story: is it just me, or does dental work get more painful as you get older? Maybe it’s just the newer technology, but when I was growing up, I’d go in for a cleaning and they’d scrape off the plaque and send me on my way. It was all very gentle, and I always got a cool new toothbrush out of it, with Transformers on it if I was lucky, and dental floss that I threw into the bathroom closet and never used. (To this day there is probably 50 sample-size containers of spearmint flavored floss in the back of my mother’s bathroom closet.)

Last week I went in for a routine cleaning and checkup, and they:

  • Got out some kind of sonic-screwdriver-water-pick that scraped away tartar and plaque with all the gentleness of a jackhammer;
  • Stabbed some kind of miniature ruler in between each of my teeth and my gums to measure inflammation;
  • polished my choppers with some kind of miniature angle grinder.

It hurt like the dickens, though of course being a stoic, John-Wayne-type manly man, I took it with nothing more than a grimace. Of course, I had cavities, so I had to go back later in the week to get drilled and spackled, and I swear to you on the souls of my cats that the dentist put a die grinder in my mouth.

Did my mouth just become untenable for the less intrusive techniques? Or did dentistry become more sadist?

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  1. Liz
    April 17th, 2008 at 16:07 | #1

    I actually asked for that water pick thing once, and my hygienist told me that it’s only for people with extra-funky teeth (like Gabe). My advice? Brush ’em every now and again, and your next visit might be less torturous.

  2. Ian
    April 24th, 2008 at 20:59 | #2

    Indeed as I work in dentistry and specialize in instruments of torture, I can concur that you should brush your teeth like at least once a week to avoid the jackhammer.

    I think you’re referring to an magnetostrictive ultrasonic scaler
    GOOGLE: Cavitron for more wonderful information

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