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My Ortho Appointment
14 years ago
So I showed up for my routine retainer enlargement appointment today, ready to be in and out of there in 15.
The doctor, a wizened old Asian guy, ushered me in, and upon examining my progress from the previous month, told me suddenly, "I don't think we are making the progress we're after. The enlargement you were seeing over the past few months has slowed down considerably. We have to be realistic here...maybe I can't help you. We might have to remove some teeth, or proceed with a surgical enlargement of your jaw."
Unhappy with that, I reluctantly told him I was prepared to do whatever had to be done to achieve the final result I was after.
He paused and thought for a moment, rubbing his chin, and nodded.
"Do you trust me?" he said. "On a scale from 1 to 10, I need at least a 7 or an 8 from you."
Now this dude is supposed to be the best guy in western Canada, so I assured him he was at the very least an 8 or 9 on my trust scale.
"Okay let's put in the brackets now" he said, which surprised me, as I wasn't supposed to have them in for a good 6 months or so.
Blindly trusting him, I nodded and he and his assistant started gluing metal brackets to my teeth, curing the glue with some sort of UV light that made my teeth feel like they were burning. When he was done, I relaxed, thinking we were done, but I was wrong.
"Hold on," he said, and he picked up something that looked like a dremel, shoving it into my mouth. The assistant pushed my tongue back with a metal tongue depressor, cranking open my mouth with her hands.
"I just have to slim down your teeth FYI" he said, and turned on the dremel, wedging it between my teeth.
Now what did it feel like? Well, it felt just as you'd imagine flossing with an electric drill would. The agony was incredible - it was like someone jabbing knives into my gums and scraping around in there.
While this was happening I was treated to the sight of bits of my teeth flying out of my mouth and bouncing off his forehead. Each time the dremel made it up to the gumline, for a split second it would start trimming down my gums, which felt fantastic and added a neat red tinge to the spray of tooth fragments.
Halfway through the dremel stopped, and the dentist asked the assistant to go get him another blade, because it was all worn out. The assistant informed him that they had run out, and that was the last one they had. They spent the next few minutes bickering over me over who had forgotten to order a new set of blades, and the dentist eventually switched to a bit half the size as before and continued about twice as slowly.
When he was finished I was covered in sweat, blood, and tooth fragments and I had ripped out the front of the right armrest of the dentist chair.
Soon after it was time to thread that wire through the front of my brackets, which went swimmingly until about halfway through.
The dentist stopped, looked at me, and said something horrible.
"Now you're going to feel a lot of pressure and pain, and there's nothing I can do about it. So hold onto something."
And he was right.
And that's what I spent $4K on today.
The doctor, a wizened old Asian guy, ushered me in, and upon examining my progress from the previous month, told me suddenly, "I don't think we are making the progress we're after. The enlargement you were seeing over the past few months has slowed down considerably. We have to be realistic here...maybe I can't help you. We might have to remove some teeth, or proceed with a surgical enlargement of your jaw."
Unhappy with that, I reluctantly told him I was prepared to do whatever had to be done to achieve the final result I was after.
He paused and thought for a moment, rubbing his chin, and nodded.
"Do you trust me?" he said. "On a scale from 1 to 10, I need at least a 7 or an 8 from you."
Now this dude is supposed to be the best guy in western Canada, so I assured him he was at the very least an 8 or 9 on my trust scale.
"Okay let's put in the brackets now" he said, which surprised me, as I wasn't supposed to have them in for a good 6 months or so.
Blindly trusting him, I nodded and he and his assistant started gluing metal brackets to my teeth, curing the glue with some sort of UV light that made my teeth feel like they were burning. When he was done, I relaxed, thinking we were done, but I was wrong.
"Hold on," he said, and he picked up something that looked like a dremel, shoving it into my mouth. The assistant pushed my tongue back with a metal tongue depressor, cranking open my mouth with her hands.
"I just have to slim down your teeth FYI" he said, and turned on the dremel, wedging it between my teeth.
Now what did it feel like? Well, it felt just as you'd imagine flossing with an electric drill would. The agony was incredible - it was like someone jabbing knives into my gums and scraping around in there.
While this was happening I was treated to the sight of bits of my teeth flying out of my mouth and bouncing off his forehead. Each time the dremel made it up to the gumline, for a split second it would start trimming down my gums, which felt fantastic and added a neat red tinge to the spray of tooth fragments.
Halfway through the dremel stopped, and the dentist asked the assistant to go get him another blade, because it was all worn out. The assistant informed him that they had run out, and that was the last one they had. They spent the next few minutes bickering over me over who had forgotten to order a new set of blades, and the dentist eventually switched to a bit half the size as before and continued about twice as slowly.
When he was finished I was covered in sweat, blood, and tooth fragments and I had ripped out the front of the right armrest of the dentist chair.
Soon after it was time to thread that wire through the front of my brackets, which went swimmingly until about halfway through.
The dentist stopped, looked at me, and said something horrible.
"Now you're going to feel a lot of pressure and pain, and there's nothing I can do about it. So hold onto something."
And he was right.
And that's what I spent $4K on today.
are you ok now??
i'll see you tomorrow