I just wanted to share my experience of going to the dentist with you. Dentists were quite scary places when I was a child. The waiting room was quite austere and receptionists did not exist. You just took a seat in a cold waiting room and waited for the dentist to call you in. My early childhood memories of going to the dentist are not good ones. I vaguely remember sitting in the dentist chair and him pulling open a drawer full of sinister looking Instruments. There was no communication between myself and the dentist as I was just a child and in that case I didn’t count. Fortunately I don’t remember having much treatment as a child, but the whole experience of going to the dentist was quite scary. My mother would drag me along without even telling me where we were going until we got there!
I went to the dentist this morning. And today’s experience is a whole different thing. I have been going to my dentist for about 30 years. I knew my dentist when he was fresh out of dentistry school, now he is a middle-aged man with greying hair.
The reception area is manned by three lovely girls who make you feel welcome as soon as you walk in. They call you by your first name and you feel as if you are a paying customer and deserve to be treated in a friendly and courteous manner.
The waiting area houses A tv, which is always on. Magazines, and trendy comfy chairs. The waiting time is less stressful because you have these distractions. Today I was only scheduled to have a checkup with the dentist but first a session with the hygienist. The hygienist is friendly and chatty and always remembers me, and we catch up with what has happened in the last three months.
Today she scraped away at my teeth and then put the electric polisher over them with some lovely tooth paste. I then went in to see my dentist who gave me a gold star for my efforts. He told me he had tried very hard to find anything wrong with my teeth and that I should go away and come back in six months time. He laughed and joked with me and I thought how different it was to visit the dentist when I was a child compared with now. The dental nurse was all smiles and we chatted on the way back to reception. The girls on the reception area were very nice as they took my money, but I think it was money well spent.
Visiting the dentist is not daunting any more. I do not have to visit the hygienist for another three months or the dentist for another six months, but I don’t really mind as I quite look forward to my visits and I also went to a teeth whitening clinic and they look fantastic now.