I have never been someone who has enjoyed flossing… at all. For some reason flossing really hurts me. And it makes my gums bleed (both signs apparently that you actually need to floss). And (have you ever noticed) it kind of makes your breath smell really bad! Plus, I’m a busy guy. I really don’t have time to floss in the morning, and at night, by the time I get upstairs and brush my teeth, I am ready to go to bed!
So a little over a month ago I went to the dentist. Every time I go to the dentist, it is the same old story. “You don’t floss enough! You need to start flossing every day! All your teeth are going to fall out, the world is going to collapse, and the heavens will fall to the earth if you don’t start flossing!!!” You know – you’ve heard it before too right?
Only this time, for the first time in my life, they added one word: Gingivitis! That’s the word that you only ever hear on commercials, and frankly, I wasn’t even really convinced existed! I figured it was some marketing tool for mouthwashes. But now, apparently, some of my gums have the beginning stages of gingivitis. Cure? You guessed it – flossing.
Arg. Now I’m really stuck. You see, serious gum disease runs in my family. My dad has been telling me for years to start flossing. I have always said I knew it was important but honestly never really thought it was. I have flossing for like 3 days here, and 1 day there, but never consistently.
So, after my last appointment I decided to try an experiment: I’m going to floss every day until my next dentist appointment. So far, so good. I’ve missed just a couple days, but I am now a flossing fiend. I floss all the time. I still kind of hate it, but it doesn’t hurt so much which is nice.
But really, I want to see what will happen. I want to walk into that office in 5 months, and see what they say. If they say – “hmmmm, you better start flossing…” I am going to FLIP OUT!!!! Then I will KNOW it is a total sham!
So I’m excited to go the dentist next time. I hear there are people (aka lindsay dinatale) who actually enjoy the dentist b/c their teeth are so perfect. I wonder if I can be that person??
Does anyone else out there actually floss regularly?
I really hate going to the dentist. Always have ever since I was a kid. I had a ton of teeth pulled as a child, and then I had braces twice! The first time I had this type of braces that had a wire running through them and it would stick into my cheeks in the back of my mouth and dig holes! I still have scare tissue holes there in fact! And this kind also had a torture mechanism that came with it. Every week I had to stick a key into the braces in the back of my mouth and turn it a quarter turn, effectively forcing my teeth to spread. SO painful.
So today I sat in the chair (tried to write a blog from the chair but was interrupted like 10 times, so I gave up) and they told me I haven’t seen them since 2007. Oh no. Right away I knew this was going to be bad.
There are so many things I don’t like about the dentist. For instance, I think it’s so awkward how close that person has to get to you! And it’s always a lady! She’s so close to you, and the first thing is, where do I look?!? I don’t want to stare at her face the whole time, that would be so strange. But the other option is the blaring light! I’d go blind if I did that! So I picked a spot between her face and the light – it was this water mark on the ceiling. After a while, I could swear the watermark turned into words. It said “THE HAT” in capital letters. I know. Weird.
Oh wait! I almost forgot. So, first off, they did a surprise attack on me. I usually like to prepare a week in advance for the dentist. I start flossing like a maniac so when they ask incredulously, “Do you floss?” I can say, “Oh yeah – just started really doing that!”
But they called me yesterday and told me they had an opening! Then, on top of that, I forgot to be careful what I ate for lunch. I had purposed in my heart to not eat anything smelling bad. So I ate caesar salad….what was I thinking!?!!?
OK, back in the chair…here’s another thing that really bothered me. My dental hygienist had bad breath!! I’m thinking – shouldn’t good breath be a pre-requisite for a dental hygienist?? So then I was forced to try and synchronize my breathing with hers, so that when she breathed out I was not breathing in.
The humiliation continues when they sit you up and make you drink from a dixie cup and then spit into a tiny drain. After 20 minutes of bleeding all over the place, there is no way on earth I can spit without having 100 little spittle strings hanging from my mouth. You know what I’m talking about?
And here’s the last thing. When the girl is working on my teeth, I get more and more anxious about my need to swallow. And once I start thinking about it I can’t stop. I know I should wait until she gets that tube out that will suck all my spit away, but I just can’t. So I start convulsing in the back of my throat trying to swallow. Does this happen to anyone else? I feel so stupid – but I also feel like I’m going to drown in my own spit!!
So, yeah, that’s my trip to the dentist. Quite eventful really. And what got me through it, honestly, was thinking about when I would get to blog about it :)
Anyone else got a good dentist story?