Dentist

I have been going to the same dental practice for over 30 years.  With what I paid the first two dentists retired, and I am now on the the 3rd owner of the practice.


I think he is pretty good.  My time with the hygienist started with dentist #2, so we go way back too.  She is 1 month younger than me.  She is good too.  


But that does not stop me from being practically sick before every visit, and getting hopefully phantom pains in my teeth when the appt. gets close.


I pay extra for the nitrous oxide.  I can't do it with out it.  Well, if its a basic, not super deep cleaning, I can do that, but that's the extent of it.


I brush and floss, eat decent, take vitamins, and have never smoked.  Yet a few years back started getting some gum problems.  I should not have them, as good as I am about oral hygiene.  But I do.  This was my second root planing/deep cleaning. They said I might have a genetic predisposition to problems.
My Mom had all her teeth out by 35.  I don 't know how well she cared for her teeth.  But she probably did not get enough calcium, and she SMOKED!.  


I may have been born with weak teeth because of that.  Thanks Mom.  I was taught to brush, but not to floss.  I think I had 10 cavities when I first started going to the dentist.  Of course I ate a lot more candy back then.  But friends got away with that ok.  So I started out with a few strikes against me.  


The dentist thinks a crown should be replaced soon...again, but that will be in 2012.  For now I am done for 4 whole months.


Except for the brushing, flossing, tongue cleaning, little poky brush things, and mouthwash.  My routine gets longer and longer.  I get to bed/work later and later.
I don't want to loose my teeth.  They are not perfect, but I want to keep them, so I go regularly trying to stave off worse damage/pain.  Its been almost 5 hrs. since I got the Novocain, and still feel too numb to eat without wearing most of it.


At least the worst is over for a while.  For me the worrying about it, and the shots are the worst part, and that tension, that it could conceivably hurt again at any minute.  How do people do any of it with out gas?  I don't understand that.  They would be peeling me off the ceiling without it.