The Strange Intimacy of Dentistry

[prillalar]

Friday I was back at the dentist yet again. I've had a lot of dentistry in the last year and a half. This is mainly because I had no dentistry at all for the six years previous. (Let that be a lesson, blah blah blah flosscakes.) I've had several new fillings, several replaced fillings, a root canal, and then, when the root canal tooth got brittle and broke, a crown, which then chipped after three weeks and had to be replaced. Hopefully I'm done for a while. My co-workers were beginning to tease me about having a thing for my dentist (so not true!) and it's been rather expensive.

Whenever I'm there, though, I tend to think about how oddly intimate the experience is. It's not just having people's fingers in your mouth -- it's having your chest used as a shelf for instruments, people's hands squashed against your nose, covering your eyes, having your head jammed up against the dentist's middle. It's probably just as well you can't carry on any conversation because how awkward would that be?

The medical intimacy we're supposed to ignore, not form relationships around, unlike the grooming intimacy of hair stylists and the like. I wonder why that is. Maybe because grooming is a usual thing, evolutionarily speaking (so why don't we do more of it?) and medical things are invasive. So to keep it from bothering us, we have to almost pretend that it isn't happening.

I've had so much dentistry that I'm worried that it's getting too familiar. That I'm beginning to enjoy it in a twisted way. Do you remember Little Shop of Horrors? In one scene, Steve Martin is playing a sadistic dentist. Then in comes Bill Murray, the masochistic dental patient.

"I think I need a root canal," he says. "A long, slow root canal."

I hope it doesn't come to that for me. I just don't have the money.

Comments

[florahart]

Oh.My.God. I'm going in for a crown next week. I have drugs to take first so I won't be such a complete fucking freak--I shake, everywhere, like I can feel the muscles around my hipbones and knees and shoulderblades quaking. I cut my nails before I go to the dentist because otherwise I cut up my palms and/or the backs of the opposite hands. Tears run inexplicably out of my eyes, into my ears. This is when I go in for a damn cleaning. I'm pretty sure this counts as a bona fide big-ass phobia. I go because I have kids to serve as an example for; otherwise I would never darken the doorstep of a dentist again. They do keep offering drugs for cleanings, too, although I just can't bring myself to take them simply because what would it say about me that I need a damn valium to get my teeth cleaned? Ew. But for the crown, while they will have to be in my mouth for a long time, yes, I'm going there; getting a shell of rotted-out tooth extracted a few months ago (a 15 minute procedure) convinced me of the necessity.

Anyway. Yes, it is oddly intimate. I always think this while I am crying and shaking and hugged up against my dentist who is pulling and twisting and poking and choking me. OK, now I'm getting all icky-feeling just thinking about it. Ew.

[prillalar]

Yikes! I think it's totally reasonable to medicate even for the cleaning, if it's that much of a stressor for you. I hope everything goes smoothly for you next week.