One thing I never did as a kid was floss. I brushed my teeth every morning and every evening, but flossing? Nope. Don’t think it was that big of a thing back then, or maybe we weren’t guided properly from our family dentist. This family dentist shared our same last name (off by a letter); he was located on Archer Avenue. Nice guy I thought. I remember when he gave my parents the word that I was going to need braces; they got a second opinion at that point. Two grand for braces?!?! Can’t recall if the 2nd opinion was the same or not; actually, I think the first opinion was from another dentist and we came back to the family guy for confirmation. Anyways, I didn’t get braces; worked out though. My teeth are really straight; they may be a bit yellow, but my teeth are great. My new dentist loves them. She told me I had great teeth; my gums, not so much. Due to the lack of flossing, I had some gum loss; she told me that if I continued down this path of not flossing, that gum loss would continue, and my teeth would eventually start to fall out. As if that wasn’t enough to get me to start flossing, she made the following comparison: brushing your teeth without flossing is like taking a bath without washing your arm pits. Sold! I know my arm pits; that’s a story for another day, but yeah… from that point on, can’t even remember how many years ago that was, I have been a religious flosser. Well, sometimes I’m not that religious about it… she can always tell during my 6 month checkup. I wasn’t able to go to my last one because I just had COVID; I didn’t have a negative test, so she wouldn’t take me. I was pissed, more so because I had flossed so great over the past 6 months… she would be so proud. Going to have to keep this up for another 6 months now… I love my new dentist though; she talks a lot, but it’s all good. I trust her with my teeth. She actually repaired some stuff the family dentist had left in there… Maybe I should have got the hint that he wasn’t that great when he told me he’d pull both my wisdom teeth for $50… Man, he was digging in mouth to get those suckers. He finally got one of them, but the other snapped off; he had to leave the roots in there. Thankfully my sister was with me for this appointment, because I couldn’t see straight after that. My face was so swollen I was looking crossed eye; she drove me home. But yeah, my new dentist cleaned those right up. She actually performed a root canal on me too. Not bad, let me tell you. You think root canal, and you think bloody murder; it wasn’t bad at all. The technology nowadays… She did the first and final part, but the part in between she sent me to a surgical place I guess. I walked in and it was like Glamour Shots in there; all of the dentists were hot. I thought, maybe I should get more root canals… They did their thing; I did have to ask them for a bit more numbing stuff… so they put that big needle back in there. All good, in and out. Root canals are not bad, and because of my dentist, I’m a flosser for life now…
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