The joys of drill-free dentistry

I went to the dentist today. It was the most pleasant visit I have ever had to the dentist! In fact, it was so great, I have absolutely no pain and no numbness at all!

I went to one of those dentists who advertise themselves as being "painless" because they don't use a drill or injections. It was fantastic! Why was it so fantastic? Because she sent me straight home and didn't do a thing besides violently yank my mouth open. She sent me home because I have a cold and a sinus drip and she was worried that the bacteria would be trapped in the cavity she needed to fill...using a drill! Yep. Are you totally confused? I was too. I mean, I read the website more than once, three or four times even all about how they have this amazing new technique which makes using drills and injections unnecessary for fillings! Wow! I'm not sure who it's unnecessary for or what those dentists deem to be fillings but when I got there, she was all about the blasted drill and injections.

Luckily, she didn't want to risk doing the filling with the cold germs lurking because she was really rough just having a look in my mouth and seemed to think that I wasn't opening my mouth when it really was as wide as it could go. I was worried that she was going to dislocate my jaw!

I then came back to work and spent 5 minutes looking online to see if there truly was a drill-free dentist out there, anywhere in Gauteng, let alone Johannesburg. I found a few! They used some sort of water abrasion system! Bingo. I phoned but this time, I asked if they even kept drills at their practice and how frequently they used them for fillings and they answered "We always use them for fillings. You can't escape the drill." But that, my dear readers, is not true according to many, many dentist's websites abroad. It just seems to be true for us here in South Africa.

This disappoints me very, very deeply and terrifies me even more deeply. I hate that blasted little drill and most dentists just can't administer the anaesthetic at the right pace to make the injections painless. So, I can either just cut back on the sweeties and brush, floss and use mouthwash 3 times a day, take copious amounts of calcium and wait until the technology arrives here or can wait for my cold to clear up, get Al to take some time off work and find a dentist that deals with little, terrified children and go to him with Alan holding my hand!