How do you feel about the dentist? Do you look forward to your appointments? Do you enjoy the cost of cleanings and whatever work needs to be done? Do you enjoy the shaming the hygienist thrusts upon you when you tell her you have been flossing twice a day and she looks at you like you are lying?
I think I know your answers without even knowing you.
In the middle of the procedure this past summer, as my tooth was being hollowed out with vibrating steel, my dentist said he loves doing this kind of work the most.
We all basically feel the same about the dentist. We begrudgingly go because we have to. The consequences of not going are more frightening than lying on your back with your mouth open for 45 minutes while someone picks away at your teeth with little metal tines. A toothache is worse than an hour in the chair numbed up, and a bad smile is worse than a couple hundred bucks a year for regular cleanings.
But still, we all kind of hate the dentist.
Tooth hurty
Though I have to say that lately I have been coming around to the guy behind the mask who comes in for five minutes at the end of the appointment just to tap on a couple of teeth before telling me what I need fixed next. I suppose it’s because over the past few years I have been giving more thought to the benefits and blessings of modern medicine.
When I was younger, I kind of thought they were exaggerating at the dentist’s office about what needed to be done or how crucial it was to fix something. And while I still think there are probably dentists out there who recommend more than is necessary and very much enjoy clients willing to pay for whatever they suggest, I trust dentists more than I have at any other time in my life.
It might sound crazy, but I actually look forward to going to the dentist these days.
I had a crown done this past summer. I ate a lot of candy when I was a kid and never brushed quite as much as I should have. I guess I thought my teeth would last forever. (Narrator: They don’t.) So over the years I had fillings where I had munched on Gobstoppers, Skittles, Shock Tarts, M&Ms, Laffy Taffy, and Now and Laters a little too enthusiastically. Then those fillings cracked and I had them replaced. Finally, this past summer, one of those fillings reached the end of the road, and a crown was necessary.
Crowning achievement
You might not believe me when I tell you I was excited to get that crown done, but I was. I had a crown done by the same dentist for the same reasons a few years earlier, and it went great. He numbed my mouth, went to work, and I left with a beautiful white tooth a few hours later.
The same thing happened this past summer. He numbed me, drilled out the remainder of the filling, had the crown made in their on-site lab, and then fastened it on top before sending me on my way with another beautiful tooth.
Lying there with my mouth open, with vibrating drills rattling my teeth, I thought about how amazing the technology is that makes this kind of operation possible and painless. The assistant used some sort of laser technology to scan my mouth after everything was cleared out, and the crown was finished less than 90 minutes later.
Imagine telling our ancestors that.
I shudder to think about what it was like sitting with a toothache 200 years ago. I don’t need a degree in dental history to imagine it was rather unpleasant, to put it mildly. And so, as much as I naturally want to hate the dentist and his menacing tools, the more I think about the world before the modern DDS, the more I realize I quite like him in 2026.
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Drill, baby, drill
In the middle of the procedure this past summer, as my tooth was being hollowed out with vibrating steel, my dentist said he loves doing this kind of work the most. As a naturally inquisitive person, I asked him why.
He told me he loves the transformation. He loves carving out all the decay and old filling and making it better than it was before. It was the most excited I’ve ever seen him.
Being at the dentist is an intimate experience. We lie there and let a couple of people we don’t know very well hunch over us and get really close to our faces while they dig around in our mouths, and we are helpless the entire time. It can be kind of embarrassing.
“Oh God, they are looking in my mouth with magnifying glasses. Did I brush enough this morning?”
In some way, needing a crown feels like a failure. I didn’t brush well enough, and now I need my tooth fixed. It’s almost like you want to apologize to the dentist.
But hearing my dentist talk about how much he loves doing this kind of work was enlightening. It humanized the man behind the mask.
He’s not a psychopath, despite his love for drilling into teeth all day long. There’s a beating heart inside the DDS. He wants to help. It took me a long time to realize it, but I think I might like the dentist more than any other doctor I see.
Sure, he bears bad news. But he can fix almost all of the problems he diagnoses. That’s more than most doctors can say.
Thirteen-year-old me wouldn’t believe it, but 39-year-old me actually likes the dentist.
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