I had a cavity, which is crazy. I didn’t know adults could get cavities.
I brush my teeth two and sometimes three times a day, and I’ve flossed every single day of my life for more than two decades.
Yet, somehow, I got a cavity.
My dentist explained that the cavity formed in a narrow groove of a tooth that was especially hard to keep clean, which left me wondering why she hadn’t warned me about this narrow groove before.
I would’ve tried harder to keep it clean.
Nevertheless, I had a cavity, which meant I had to return to the visit for a process involving needles and drills in my mouth.
I dreaded this appointment for more than a week. I considered canceling or rescheduling for sometime in late 2029.
But instead, I decided to go.
While sitting in the chair, I explained my fear of needles to the dentist and hygenist:
A near-death experience after being stung by a bee at the age of 12 led to dozens of needles over the course of a week that left me terrified of shots of any kind.
A negative feedback loop, I’ve been told. Hard-wired into my brain.
I’m better about needles today, but I’m still not great, and a needle in my mouth is especially terrifying.
The dentist and hygienist were patient and kind and promised to make this process as simple and painless as possible.
“Sure,” I thought. “Like that’s going to happen.”
Then it did.
Some numbing gel applied to the site of the injection made the needle completely pain-free. I closed my eyes as they began the procedure and didn’t even know that the injection had happened.
“It’s done?” I said. “You did the novocaine shot?”
“Yup,” she said. “We’ll just wait a few minutes for it to numb.”
I couldn’t believe it.
Shortly thereafter, the drilling began. It started with safety goggles — something I had never worn as a child when I had a cavity filled— and warnings that if I needed a break or things became too uncomfortable, I should just raise my hand, and they would stop.
I braced myself for the drill, and then I felt nothing. Other than the sound of drilling and a slight vibration in my head, it was better than painless:
It was nothing. No sensation whatsoever.
I couldn’t believe it again.
Apparently, dentistry in the 1980s was barbaric compared to today. What was once a painful and awful process has become a nothing-burger four decades later.
The same thing happened with root canals. After having my bottom row of teeth knocked out during a head-on collision that sent my head through a windshield, two of my teeth — re-rooted by dental surgeons after the accident — have required a root canal.
The first procedure, back in 1992, was barbaric. A two-day process that was painful beyond imagination. Purposely painful, in fact, to ensure that the dentist was hitting the nerve.
“Tell me when it hurts,” he would say again and again and again.
The second root canal, done a day after my honeymoon in 2006, was completely pain-free and done in less than 30 minutes.
I hugged the dentist when we were done. I couldn’t believe it.
It’s easy to forget how far we’ve come. Two previously painful and frightening procedures have now become pain-free and almost carefree.
Amazing.
It’s also easy to think we’ve reached some near-pinnacle of medicine and technology, failing to realize that someday in the future, human beings will look at the medicine and dentistry of today in the same way we look back on the medicine and dentistry of a century or more ago as horrific, ridiculous, and utterly unscientific.
We’re always living in the stupidity and barbarism of the future. Future generations will inevitably look at how we lived as incomprehensible and disastrous.
But I’m happy to report it’s at least a little less barbaric than it once was, and for that, I am so very grateful.
