ITT: Dalekk admires the wonders of modern medicine

[Dalek]

It all started yesterday at basketball training. I was under the basket about to score when a series of unfortunate events sent the ball to my jaw, breaking one of my front teeth. The nerve got opened and it hurt as hell when I breathed in or drank fluids or if anything came into contact with the tooth. So a grim future opened up for me - the visit to the dentist.

All my previous visits were pretty traumatising, as they all included mad pain and incompetence. Every single memory I've got from going to the dentist includes true agony, and this is why whenever I hear a drill I shiver. You can tell I was not really happy to go to the dentist. But my mother lead me to her new dentist - some german guy, who really knows what he's doing. The first thing he asked me was if my teeth hurt. Then he loaded some anaesthetic into a syringe and gave me a shot. I lost feeling in a half of my face and soon he started drilling my tooth. This was the first time I went to the dentist and didn't agonise. Why the hell hasn't any of the previous dentists I went to used such an anaesthetic? I remember they used some spray that had pretty much the same effect a few mints would have and it didn't help.

Maybe I'll be brave enough to tell him about the rear teeth that I sometimes feel an aching in, when I eat sour food, because it has tortured me for a few years and I was too afraid to tell anyone, because of my huge fear of going to the dentist. Going to the dentist and not being in pain is a life-changing experience. Fuck those fuckers, from my childhood that scared the crap out of me with their incompetence.

[Doktor Howl]

Two things:

1.  I am glad to see that painless dentistry has made it to Bulgaria.  It's truly one of the blessings of modern life.

2.  This is exactly why Europeans should not play basketball.  They lack the proper glands for that sort of thing, and they keep using medicine balls instead of real basketballs.

[Freeky]

I feel you, Dalekk. I too have The Fear when it comes to dentists, due to having a resistance to local anesthesia. Do get your teeth dealt with if you can. Tooth aches are the worst.

[Cain]

Foreign dentists are always a good bet.  My friend had some serious toothache while backpacking in Nepal, and managed to find a British trained dentist in a tent out in the middle of nowhere...not only did he give him a painless treatment, he gave him a receipt and also several references for dentists he should see when he returned to the UK, just to make sure everything was alright.

[Jenne]

I hate dentists...have had some awesomely awful experiences, both in childhood AND adulthood.    Glad your singular experience will help you get the treatment you've been putting off...

[Hanni]

I know the pain you're describing perfectly! I fell over as a child and face-planted the floor, broke my nose, one of my front teeth and knocked my jaw forward slightly. That trip to the dentist wasn't fun at all.

Glad you've found one who's not afraid to give some pain relief! Hopefully your other teeth won't be a big problem

[Triple Zero]

Good to hear, Dalekk! I have similar experiences, ok not so agonizing, but my previous dentist apparently completely sucked at placing fillings. They always ended up falling out or breaking. And I have over 15 of the fuckers. I walked half a year with a big hole between my teeth, it didn't hurt, but food got lodged in it, which was annoying (but I cleaned it always so it didn't infect), and the only reason I didn't go there was because I figured, what's the use, they're gonna break again anyways.

Then I got a new dentist, who incidentally also is more skilled at the anaesthetics, which is good, as well as generally being nice and comforting about it, and he redid almost all of them, and it's years later and they're all still in there

Moral of the stories: If you don't like going to the dentist, get a better one.

Also, not having gaps between your teeth is fucking AWESOME and makes eating steak a shitload more enjoyable.

[Cainad (dec.)]

My dentist visits are usually pretty tame, but I know one poor bastard who is basically immune to nearly all forms of anesthesia/painkillers.