I got my fear of dentists from a young age, when a “bad” tooth was crowding out incoming adult teeth and had to be pulled. The dentist (and my mother) did not tell me this before the tooth was pulled. It was my first experience with Novocain (worked well… then wore off) and my first exposure to blood streaming down my face (yes, the bib caught it, but my POINT is…).
The Navy insisted that I get annual dental checkups. 😡 Then I found that if I never turned in my dental records when I got to a new assignment, I never got scheduled. 😈 I went seven years before got a dental exam as part of my Navy discharge process.
As a civilian the last 33 years, I have been to a dentist maybe four times. The last time I went because I had mouth pain; I paid $200 for x-rays, was told they found nothing and I was fine (no pain the day I went, of course 🙄). I then went on the Internet when my pain came back, found a gum disease description that matched my symptoms, treated my mouth as suggested (basically using high-alcohol mouthwash, the kind that tastes so bad you spit out the mouthwash and go “BLEEHHHH!” at the same time), and I was fine.
I am blessed with fundamentally good teeth genetically, so I am in pretty good shape, but… some teeth on my right side are cracking, so I only chew hard foods on my left side, so… better to go BEFORE I mess up that side, right?
Right?