Sunday 10 April 2011

Why be Denny dentist different?

When I was growing up, I feared the dentist, in a natural sort of way. The dentist office in the village nearby was dimly lit and adorned with disturbing modern art featuring concrete blocks being winched through a hole in a building. And my dentist was a very imposing, exuberant Korean guy who frightened me a little bit. I only went just enough times to keep me registered, but when I went off to university I kind of fell off the books.

In Tokushima, I struck it lucky, in a way. Tokushima has the highest proportion of dentists to population in Japan. I think one of the universities has a good dental school or something. I was able to get fairly good treatment when I had the dreaded wisdom tooth problems.

Back to Edinburgh, I was dentistless again, and the local place wasn't taking NHS patients any more. And then the damned wisdom tooth pain returned and was worse than usual. Fortunately, a friend had had a leaflet through the door about a new surgery opening in town, so I went along to get registered. I had an appointment on Thursday and am going back tomorrow for a scale and polish, which I think is some kind of clean.

I'm pretty excited about it. I've never had a professional clean before. I'm feeling good about overcoming my alienation with dentists. I have, somewhat embarassingly, taken a photo of my teeth to see if I'll be able to tell the difference.

Osmond teeth here I come.

1 comment:

LostGeekGlasgow said...

lol at the modern art on the dentist wall.