Category: Fear

“Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it,” reads the needlepoint
above the dentist’s door, beyond which “Little Learners”
are doing time in the chair. One at a time, up and down,
they practice how to be not afraid, to tip their chins,
spit. And then to brush in circles gently
for two minutes. No blood today, no needles, drills,
just a plastic sack of gifts: a magnet of a happy tooth,
a purple toothbrush, paste. …when they’re all lined up and holding
hands in pairs, they lift their faces as if toward God
to the camera. Having been happily trained for pain,
they flash their unharmed smiles, and in my mind, I exit
with them, all my ex-selves, mittens attached
to their jackets, bright and unbreakable.
~Dierdre O’Connor from “At the Dentist’s” from The Cupped Field

One thing I like less than most things is sitting in a dentist chair
with my mouth wide open.
And that I will never have to do it again
is a hope that I am against hope hopen.

Because some tortures are physical and some are mental,
But the one that is both is dental.
It is hard to be self-possessed
With your jaw digging into your chest.

So hard to retain your calm
When your fingernails are making serious alterations
in your life line or love line
or some other important line in your palm;

So hard to give your usual effect of cheery benignity
When you know your position is one of the two or three in life
most lacking in dignity.

And your mouth is like a section of road that is being worked on.
And it is all cluttered up with stone crushers
and concrete mixers and drills and steam rollers
and there isn’t a nerve in your head that
you aren’t being irked on.

Oh, some people are unfortunate enough
to be strung up by thumbs.
And others have things done to their gums,
And your teeth are supposed to be being polished,
But you have reason to believe they are being demolished.
And the circumstance that adds most to your terror
Is that it’s all done with a mirror,
Because the dentist may be a bear,
or as the Romans used to say,
only they were referring to a feminine bear
when they said it, an ursa,
But all the same how can you be sure
when he takes his crowbar in one
hand and mirror in the other he won’t get mixed up, the way you
do when you try to tie a bow tie with the aid of a mirror, and forget
that left is right and vice versa?

And then at last he says
That will be all; but it isn’t because he then
coats your mouth from cellar to roof
With something that I suspect is generally used to put a shine on a
horse’s hoof.

And you totter to your feet and think. Well it’s all over now and after
all it was only this once.
And he says come back in three monce.
And this, O Fate, is I think the most vicious circle that thou ever sentest, That Man has to go continually
to the dentist to keep his teeth in good
condition when the chief reason
he wants his teeth in good condition
is so that he won’t have to go to the dentist. 
~Ogden Nash “This is Going to Hurt a Little Bit”

Yesterday, as I rested comfortably in the dental chair for a repair of two decades-old fillings in my front teeth, I thought about my childhood dental experiences over 60 years ago.

There was the little round basin with swirling water next to the chair where I was told to spit the bloody stuff accumulating in my mouth as they drilled out the cavities.

Cavities were drilled and filled without novocaine for children. The injection was considered more traumatic than the sensation of the drill. I was a very compliant child, stoic when I was told to be, but tightly gripped the arm rests of that old dental chair as the high-pitched whir of the drill sent pain from my tooth into my brain.

It was, in a word, torture. But that’s how things were done back then.

I did get novocaine injections for several tooth extractions necessary for orthodontia to correct my crooked teeth. No numbing gel, no slow infiltration of the anesthetic into the gums, just one scary giant needle into the gums or hard palate.

I gripped the arm rests even tighter for that.

Dentists back didn’t want to torture children. They simply weren’t trained to do it differently. They didn’t wear gloves, only washing their hands between patients. And they had plenty of on-the-job hazards themselves with mercury exposure and being bitten.

In fact, my childhood dentist was so impressed with my stoicism, he later hired me as a high schooler to be his chair-side assistant several days a week after school. I learned many skills, helping people of all ages cope with a painful experience, but also learned I didn’t have what it takes to be a patient dentist.

I love my current dentist’s gentle technique, his pain-free injection of anesthesia, his reassuring banter and frequent check-ins (“you doing okay?”). Too many older adults still struggle all these years later with dentist-phobia, avoiding routine cleanings and check-ups. I still have all my teeth thanks to several incredibly skilled dental artisans over the decades who have saved my enamel with their sculpted crowns and fillings. I am beyond grateful for their care.

So I sit in the dental chair, put on the sunglasses, and gladly open wide for them.

But, I can’t help it, out of habit and reflex, I still grip the arm rests too tightly.