Thursday, March 20, 2008

Return of the Tracks

This week has been a bit of a rollercoaster. Last week, I was munching on a mint - a necessary evil to avoid killing customers with coffee breath - and it went crunch, crunch, *crunch*. Bugger. I broke a molar. Now, my relationship with dentists aren't terribly good. I did have a dentist on the North Norfolk coast, but since I don't have access to a car, I haven't been to see her for over two years. I've tried dentists in the city with limited success. The dentist at the university seemed to be the 'old school' type; he had limited technology and liked to cause pain. Another dentist seemed to find it unusual that I didn't want to make two appointments, one for the check-up and the other for the scale and polish. How quaint was I wanting to get it over and done with?

I logged on to the NHSD website and did a search for NHS dentists in my postcode. I had a nice list of practices to ring, until I started reading the small print. Most were not accepting new patients, or NHS patients and/or both. I decided to follow Gee's advice and rang her dentist, on the off-chance they could see me. The cheerful receptionist said they'd be happy to take me on, but could only see me in April, when I explained my mishap with the mint, I got to see the dishiest dentist Tuesday morning.

To cut a long, and largely unpleasant story short, he poked about for a bit, decided to do a scale and polish while he was at it and then suggested that part of my problem was that my bite was off, I've got an over-crowding problem and would I consider braces?

I had braces in my teens. Not an entirely happy or satisfactory experience, largely my fault for not maintaining good oral hygiene. Crooked teeth run in the family, because Boy is about to start his course of orthodontics. So I thought about it and said, yes.

I'll need to be refered to the specialist, and I'm not entirely sure I can afford it at the moment, but it'll be something that will be worthwhile, especially if I don't have problems with pesky mints ever again.

3 comments:

  1. Or - you could take the simpler less painful option and give up mints.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous12:28 pm

    Queen Elizabeth l had the same problem and used cachous...bet they weren't peppermint flavoured though!

    Personally, I find that lager or whisky generally gets rid of that unpleasant coffee breath!

    (heh heh heh)

    ReplyDelete
  3. kaz ~ I'm trying chewing gum, not my favoured option, but kinder to my tooths (apparently).

    mutley ~ the only problem with your theory, and I'm sure it does work, is that I'll get the sack. Well, that and the fact I can't bear whisky. West Indian rum on the other hand...yummy.

    ReplyDelete

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