What is your body’s sign for experiencing mortal fear? Shallow breathing? A racing heart? In my case, the telltale sign that I have just suffered an ‘I’d-rather-be-dead-than-go-through-this-alive’ moment is when a glistening drop of sweat runs all the way from the back of my knee down into my shoes. It happens every time I slide down from the dental hygienist’s chair, panic-sweaty clothes clinging to my backside.
Teeth have been an issue for me ever since I was little. In fact, one of my friends distinctly remembers how during our first encounter at primary school, I went to great length to show her all that was wrong in my mouth before even telling her my name. I have genetically weak enamel, sensitive gums and a predisposition for build-up due to highly mineralised saliva. The fact that I know how to say this sentence in four languages gives you an idea of how much my dental history haunts me. No matter where I get stranded, chances are I will be able to communicate intricate details about my teeth should the opportunity present itself.
All this is to say that I had been spending a life of sleepless pre-appointment nights, multibuy purchases of dental floss and brave-faced treatments when another escalation in my dental paranoia occurred last weekend.
Leading up to my appointment, I had actually convinced myself that I was feeling calmer than usual. However, it didn’t take long for this self-delusion to come crashing down. Paired with a new hygienist, we veered of my pre-rehearsed script the moment I sat down. Eli, shall we call her, was determined to use the ultrasonic scaler (aka the hook from hell) on all my teeth to produce the desired clean result. During my normal appointments, this torture device was reserved only for the most plaque-d molars. Aware of my growing unease, Eli and I got stuck in a nonsensical conversational loop in which she insisted on asking whether I was ‘feeling okay’ to start the procedure, to which I repeatedly replied in martyrdom fashion, I was never going to be okay in this chair, but we needed to get it done anyways.
Spinning round in circles like this for what seemed like eternity, I eventually dissolved into a panic-breathing, shrinking-from-the-slightest-movement-in-the-general-direction-of-my-face, bawling-my-eyes-out mess. And once the floodgates had opened, it was impossible to stop. Think Noah’s Arch meets The Day after Tomorrow.
I will never forget the terror in the boy’s face who was up next. I glimpsed his hypnotised stare from my puffy eyes as I finally emerged from the hygienist’s room like a trembling ogre, releasing another tortured wail as I realised that I had unwittingly passed on my fear to the next generation.
Once home, I wrecked my brain as to what had brought this on. It wasn’t the blood-curdling sound of the hook from hell Eli used to scrape plaque of my teeth, nor the shooting-to-bones-I-didn’t-know-I-had pain it produces, or worse the anticipation of said pain. No. What had sent me over the edge of sanity was the hygienist’s remark that given the amount of build-up I had, she would like to see me brush my teeth in case I was doing something wrong.
It wasn’t how patronising a statement that was. If it saved me from regular encounters with the hook from hell, I’d gladly have the hygienist watch me brush my teeth all day every day. What derailed me with this statement was the accusation that I wasn’t doing everything in my power to maintain optimal dental hygiene. How many different toothpastes, brushes, mouth washes, self-expanding flosses and inter-dental sticks does one woman have to own? And knowing that there was no way my personal dental hygiene protocol could be further optimised, behind this phrase lurked the terrifying realisation that there were certain things with my health that were simply beyond my control.
In Happy Ever After, behavioural scientist Paul Dolan writes about the social narrative that you have a duty to maximise your health: ‘Taking responsibility for our health is considered virtuous, and health has become an integral part of our social identities. As such, people are more likely to attribute their own or others’ poor health to personal agency rather than to more important structural and biological reasons.’
What was playing out in my mouth were not only 25 odd years of dental treatment terror. It was the tale of fitness trackers and cleansing juices suggesting that if you try hard enough you can be healthy, crashing into the realities of a genetic pre-disposition to cavities that no dental hygiene protocol could eradicate. Basically, if I ended up walking around with stumps of rotten teeth I not only risked looking odd, but worse being viewed as a moral failure and a social outcast incompliant with the obligation to ‘look after myself’ properly.
However, realising my entrapment in unreasonable health narratives did little to prepare me for the dental check-up appointment I was to have the following Monday. So I did the next best thing. Googling how much it would cost to have all my teeth replaced. Apart from the fact that it was prohibitively expensive, this phrase alone brought my search to a quick end: ‘The procedure hinges upon a proper fusion of the abutments with the jawbone’. But then I struck algorithmic gold. One thing I haven’t yet tried in my attempts to avert dental disaster is Xylitol. Unlike sugar, this sweetener is rumoured to actually strengthen your teeth. Sweet!
Emboldened by my new health hack find and the illusion of agency it gave me, I returned to the dentist. Given my performance, I was half expecting warning posters with my face on the walls: Beware of this patient. While there was nothing on the walls, there was definitely a note in my file. Throughout the appointment staff hovered around me with zealous kindness. Move slowly. Do not wake the monster. All my meek attempts at jokes were met with ripples of laughter. For the first time in decades, my dentist’s verdict as she examined my teeth was: ‘All sound – all sound – all sound’. Now, I could put that down to wanting to keep me in the practice for as little as possible. But then I thought, what if I go with this. If one story can send me into a spin at the mere sound of an ultrasonic cleaning utensil, why shouldn’t another be just as powerful in making me feel calm?
All sound. I kept repeating these magical words to myself like a mantra as I went home and started baking Keto brownies with Xylitol. You know, just your bog-standard, completely normative health behaviour… I can’t wait for my next appointment.