Virgin Dental

Do you remember your first dental visit? Mine was probably not till I was 7 or 8 years old, when I started Primary One. Our school had a special dentist, and every few weeks, some stranger from another class will pop in with some A3 sized yellow cards, and read out the names of the lucky ones.

I don't exactly recall the visit, but I do remember not liking it very much because I didn't look forward to those visits. I also remember the class cheering the names of the students who were called up, and I guess that is a omen that it wasn't a good thing. At that time around 1978, we still didn't have much advanced technology, so it hurt much more than what we have nowadays. Still, it is never a pleasant experience.

Tomorrow, my little 5 year old niece will be having major dental surgery (believe it or not!) with one tooth extraction and four crowns. It started with some toothache, and a visit to the dentist revealed that there were some serious issues that needed to be referred to a paediatrician, because she was gagging at the smell of the latex gloves, and they couldn't get her to open her mouth long enough.

I was a little skeptical with Mum's explanation of how it got so bad. She said that it's got to do with her sucking on the milk bottle for a prolonged time and the buildup of milk powder, which is really sweet, at the back of her tooth. I thought it a little incredulous but since I wasn't an expert, I couldn't comment further. What I do know is that my Mum and sister restricts the amount of lollies and sugary drinks they have, so I knew it didn't have much to do with the amount of sweets she was having. Mum has this "5 minute" lollipop game that she plays with them, which is allowing them only 5 minutes (or her definition of that) with the lollipop, and then re-wrapping them and storing them in the fridge for the next day. Yes, my mother does have her little idiosyncrasies, but I guess I didn't turn out too bad.

I didn't know that this is such a phenomenon nowadays until my Aussie friend told me yesterday that it is quite common and it was also reported on a special news program recently. I really pity Joy having to go through such a trauma this young, but they are putting her on general, so she will probably not feel a thing. I guess one of the worst things is that the operation is going to cost around $3000, on top of the pain she is feeling now, and probably for a few days after. Not looking forward to that. Poor girl ...