Do You Fear Your Dentist?

In all my travels and of all the people I've met in my life, I can't say I've met anyone that truly enjoys going to see the dentist. Not that it comes up in regular conversation very often, I mean, who brags about how good their dentist is? I'd assume that most dentist conversations that do organically happen all start out the same... Someone complains about a dentist, then someone else recommends theirs. I'm sure there are some less-than-ideal DDS professionals out there, I guess I'm lucky enough to have never met one.

From a very early age my mother started all of us off in visiting the dentist. Regular cleanings, getting on a first name basis with the doc... (calling a dentist "doc" usually gets a good response since they're referred to always as dentist instead of doctor and what not) In fact, I had the same dentist from when I grew teeth until I moved away from the family home somewhere around 21 after college. Even then, my new dentist was familiar enough, a distant cousin to the family and another really good dentist. He is/was over in Duncan, so if anything, I'd get some good miles on my bike to and from getting a cleaning. About the time he started talking about retirement, I started looking for someone here in Lawton and found one... Admittedly I thought "That's right by my house, I'll try him" in the totally wrong way to go about it... but again, a good dentist. It has me wondering what everybody is complaining about?

Don't get me wrong, I've experienced a little pain with the dentists in my life. I have some hereditary condition with my dental nerve endings, so I'm really hard to deaden for drilling and stuff. Back in the day, they'd just strap a mask on me and give me the giggle gas, but that isn't the trend anymore. It's all about the cheap and effective needles now. I don't mind it, you just feel that sting for a split second before the medicine does its thing... but what works for most never works for me. I've had a dentist say in shock "You can really feel that still?" It always ends up being double the shots for me, which is fine, but when it starts wearing off, I can feel every place they stuck that needle. Like when you get a tetanus shot, it's just sore. It's not really as bad as it could be I suppose. I haven't had a cavity in a over a decade, but some of those old fillings that need redone periodically aren't any fun at all.

I guess the point being, if you have a dentist that hurts you, you have the wrong dentist. So far I'm batting a thousand with them, it can't be that hard to find a good one. At least these days it's easy as looking up reviews online. Of course, most people won't take the time to review something like this unless they feel slighted or short-shafted, so you have to weed out the Karen reviews, but everyone should have a good dentist they feel comfortable with. I hope you find yours.