So a year or three ago, my right top bicuspid (?! the fourth one back from center) started talking to me about dental health. Sensitivity to cold, sometimes to hot, the tooth aching... I hesitated about going to the dentist. "Hesitate" not in the sense of look left, right, and jump off the diving board. "Hesitate" in the sense of waiting about 250,000 minutes (six months) before acting.
Why wait so long, you ask? That's the point, we sez. Why indeed.
Six months on, I hustle in. I take the half day off, I sit there and get the weird cardboard things that pinch your gums, they do the X-rays, they tut-tut at whatever they see that they don't like... don't you floss daily, you cretin? ... large, large commitment of time and energy to have this thing looked at. From my point of view. (Do dentists listen to chiropractors about proper spinal care?)
One time I went to the doctor. He diagnosed diverticulitis... by pushing on my tummy, letting it bounce up, and asking whether it hurt when it bounced back up. I was in and out in a couple of minutes, and it was a pleasant conversation, too.
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Intermission: I like dentists, personally. Read more
We are all instructed by our dentists that in order to practice proper oral hygiene that we must floss all of our teeth once per day, generally at night before we lay down to sleep. If you can find me one person who is actually fond of this habit, please let me know. Because a community consensus generally is partial to the latter: that notion being, that everybody dislikes this necessary routine.
