Chewing on changes in dentistry
For my sons, dental visits are a piece of cake. The dentist's office is a veritable playground laden with toys, children's books--even a train that chugs on a track throughout the whole suite. Helping reduce the jitters is the latest G-rated movie playing on screens located in almost every room.
Dental science has changed, too. They can put sealants on teeth, fending off cavities like never before. The fluoride comes in different flavors. And to cap it all off (no pun intended) my sons' dentist just knows how to put children at ease.
Tooth care was different back in the day when a poke in the eye with a sharp stick was almost preferable to seeing a dentist.
Let's face it: Dentistry was originally developed for the Spanish Inquisition. Strap some poor victim to a chair, brace open his mouth with a metal grill, scrape his teeth with a blade and then poke around with pointy objects for an hour.
My mother never told me when we were going to the dentist. We'd just be in the car riding along until I began to recognize the landmarks. It was like the Death Star coming into view, warning that danger lurked ahead. Mom's car slowly pulling into the parking garage of our dentist was akin to the Millennium Falcon trapped in the tractor beam, being swallowed by the space station.
If you saw the movie, you may recall the scene in "The Empire Strikes Back" when Han Solo is captured and tortured by Vader. That's a dental chair he is strapped to, and the tools on that torture droid appear remarkably similar to dental equipment. I certainly identify with Han's screams of pain and terror.
On the goofier side, we were sometimes given pills made from red dye. The idea was that we should chew them before brushing our teeth. The dye revealed where more brushing was needed. Here' s the joke: We could brush for a half hour and never get rid of all the red dye. But by-golly we had brushed our teeth good! Or at least we hoped. Otherwise we endured the whining shrill of that drill boring into a tooth, resonating along the jaw and throughout the skull until our brain throbbed. If all that weren't bad enough, fluoride in those days tasted like battery acid.
Fortunately I met and married my wife who introduced me to a modern dentist--one that could even give a shot almost painlessly. Technology in teeth cleaning has helped a lot, too. The sonic method is far more tolerable than the bone-rattling scraping with a steel hook.
My sons, by the way, all checked out with no cavities. Yep, they brush daily and each had the sealant applied to their teeth. It helps too, that they really don't eat candy.
That's not to say they don't dive into my wife's homemade baked goods. Evidently kids can have their cake, and eat it, too.
Copyright 2008 by David Falloure
