THE DENTIST

By Johanne James

Hello my friends!

Lets talk about the dentist.
I can see many of you running for cover at the mere mention of the word! It conjures up all sorts of evil images, for me anyway. Have you not seen the movie Marathon Man and the scene with Lawrence Olivier and Dustin Hoffman, and as he has him, Hoffman that is, strapped to a chair with a very sharp implement in hand he asks, “Is it safe”? Pardon? “Is it safe”? Anyway, I won’t go into too much detail as again I’ll have you running for cover, so just go and watch the movie, if you can, mwah ha ha ha ha!

I myself am very lucky not to have to visit a dentist as regularly as others.
I have been blessed with good genes and it’s pure luck, and the fact that I do look after my teeth, you know, floss every day and blah blah blah all seems to help. But I must confess, many years ago when I was a wee boy I did have a tooth extracted and my goodness me it was the worst experience of my little life at the time, apart from QPR Football Club not winning the league, but that’s another story. I begged him to stop, but he took no notice and seemed to be enjoying my suffering, hence I have since had a fear of visiting those of his profession! Not only could I feel it, I could hear this awful grating sound as he tugged away and when he finally finished torturing me, the pain was gone in an instant. With the tears streaming down my face I said to myself, phew, I don’t want to go through that again and I’m sure there are many of you out there that can identify with that experience. Open wide, then they prod and poke, “Does that hurt”? Well yes it does thank you very much, now do you mind? I’m sure you’ve all seen that very strange coloured liquid they ask you to rinse your mouth out with and I know you’re not meant to swallow it, but you can taste it, can’t you? Then there’s that awful numbness in which you can’t feel anything, you then put in your gob and it all seems to just find its way out of your mouth and onto the table, the floor and you ask yourself, what on earth is wrong with me, I can’t feel anything? Der!

Dentists are a necessary evil.
And trust me, evil they can be, and with the privatisation of this profession they now can cost you a fortune, so consequently if you don’t have the money to visit one, you suffer! I’m sure that’s a topic for a future column, but in the meantime I shouldn’t dive into the shark infested pool of politics! There are so many procedures done now with whitening, implants, fillings, crowns, bridges and a host of others, take your pick. It’s best to look after your teeth, as the more you visit a dentist is the more you visit a dentist. I have an intense dislike for the injections! Ouch! In fact any sharp object that happens near my person!
As in any profession there are good and bad and if you find a good one who isn’t an extortionist then you’re very lucky indeed as it can cost you a second mortgage just to have him say “Open wide”.

Thanks for listening.

Johanne James