Hmm. I didn't think I was alone in my feelings about dentists. Maybe I'm just not very much of a man. :(

What does that mean? Is it only women who do not like dentists where you come from?

I had braces for 7 years. Getting them off was wicked-awesome.

I just mean that I am paralyzingly, irrationally afraid of people who can do me little harm and a lot of (well, maybe that's going too far) good. I might be wrong, but I think that's a sign of weakness. :P Not that I think women are inherently weak or anything. It's just an expression.

I had two sets of rubber bands for a while to correct four teeth. When they took the hooks off, which had been glued to the teeth, they literally snapped them off. It felt and sounded like they snapped the teeth in half.

I think the dentists should work more on their image. Rooms that smell good, large pictures of kittens and nature, and potted plants. Since some people are afraid to ask, they should also tell you exactly what they're doing all the time by default.

Except for the smell that's kind of what the dentist office I go to is like.  They have pictures of nature and stuff everywhere, they play music (classic rock), they're nice.


Now I don't think that's such a good idea.  Telling someone what you're doing can probably cause them phantom pain (which isn't really any less real than physical pain) because they just imagine what's going on.  Like when I got the thing on my arm cut off, I really didn't like having it described to me.  The doctor who did it didn't say anything, but my mother felt it necessary to narrate how he was scraping and cutting tissue out of my arm.  It would have been a much more pleasant experience if I had been able to not know what was going on.  At least when they don't tell you, you can pretend that they're doing something less frightening to you.

Of course I should mention that the horror of having that thing cut out of my arm was overshadowed when they took the bandage off and discovered that the stitches hadn't held my arm shut and, surprise, there's my muscle visible through a hole in my arm about the size of a penny.

Heh. I have so much metal in my mouth, that the dentist said that it would leave a permanent gash on my mouth.

Have lots of permanent gashes in my mouth from them  :-. Some from accidents. like when a wire came loose and got caught on the inside of my cheek, and others simply from having springs rub against them for so many days in a row.

You guys just wait untill you need false teeth. That's a process that I never understood how scary it was untill my mother had to get it done.

Basically, they sedate you, and try to pull yer teeth out as quickly as possible to keep the anaesthetics from wearing off. They kinda broke pieces of my mother's jaw off so that they were sticking out of her gums. She had pull them out herself when she got home. And on top of the brutal battery, it takes months for the healing process to work, during which you can't eat solid foods and have to wear tooth prosthetics (false false teeth) if anything. Plus it costs a fortune.

Can't believe all them rappers who get themselves gold fangs and crazy stuff like that.