I hate going to the dentist

I am one of those people that DREADS going to the dentist.  I hate it.  I never have liked it.  I have friends that say they actually enjoy it, which just boggles my mind.  I get stomach aches every time I think about going to the dentist.  But I have good reasons, I think.

Even when I was younger, I disliked the dentist.  We went to a good dentist growing up.  He was gentle and kind, but I was still afraid.  They would give me the happy gas, and I would hold my breath when they put the mask on me, as long as I could because I was afraid of the gas too.  Haha!

When I was pretty young, I had a baby tooth break and I had to go to an oral surgeon on the weekend.  It was the old guy who did NOTHING to be gentle or ease my fear.  It was the first time I saw that MASSIVE needle they stick in your mouth to numb you, and he jabbed that thing in multiple times without putting the topical numbing on at all.  And he squeezed the outside of my jaw so hard I had bruises on my face afterwards.  So that helped my fear a lot….

Before we went to Italy, we had to get dentally cleared.  I went to a dentist up in Surprise, who immediately told me I needed like $1800 worth of work, including a crown and a bunch of other things, and that I needed to pay them upfront and I would get reimbursed by my insurance and then they’d sign my release for the clearance.  Convenient, huh?  Thankfully I went to get a second opinion with Dr. Kim at Litchfield Dental Care, and he said there was nothing wrong with my teeth and signed my release.

So I went to an Italian dentist in Italy who did a few fillings, but managed to mess them all up because I had one redone back in the States and the other one also needs to be redone.  I was having a little bit of pain on one of my teeth in February of this year, so I went to the dental clinic on base at Aviano and they told me there was a cavity underneath the filling the Italian dentist did and that it would need to be fixed but they couldn’t do it so to have it down when I moved back to AZ.

Last week I went to a new dentist here because I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember Dr Kim’s name or where he was located.  So I went to a different dentist by my house.  I’d been worrying about this appointment for 3 weeks so I wasn’t exactly excited.  I have a fear of the dentist, but I also have a fear of being screwed over by a dentist also, and it turns out, for good reason…

The cleaning went okay – the girl was REALLY rough – and then she told me I had 2 teeth that might need looking at, which was a first since normally the hygienists don’t diagnose anything.  But she spent more time looking at my teeth and poking around like the dentists do than the actual dentist did.

Then the dentist comes in and he’s looking at the x-rays, and spends about 2-3 seconds per screen shot and starts rattling off teeth and numbers and by the time he was done, he said I had NINE cavities.  I about died.  Considering not even TWO months ago I was at the dentist and they said I had ONE.  Oh, and the one they said I had, this idiot tells me that that’s not a cavity, it’s just left over filling that the Italian dentist didn’t get out.

I was about beside myself.  I never realized how many crooked dentists there were until I lived in AZ, and then they all seem to be about screwing you over.  So that lit a fire under my butt and I quickly figured out who I went to before while driving around where I thought it was and I made appointment with Dr. Kim for today.

He spent a while looking at my teeth – for no charge – and told me that I have 2 cavities – one the original one, and one on the tooth right above that one – and that I’d probably need crowns on both of them (which the Aviano clinic had told me I’d need a crown on the one they saw too).  But there is a huge difference between 2 and NINE for God’s sake.  Pisses me off.  I’m just glad I found Dr. Kim again.  Hopefully my appointment next Weds won’t be too bad….  But I’m not exactly looking forward to it.

For those of you not living the military lifestyle – be very thankful you don’t have to change doctors, dentists, hair stylists, etc very often.  It’s NOT fun trying to figure out who to trust and who’s trying to screw you over…