Trip to the Dentist

Well I thought I put it off for long enough so I finally made a dentist appointment last week. My neighbour recommended a nearby dentist, so I called to make an appointment. After giving me very detailed directions, I asked what the address was, but the reply I got was "we don't actually have an address, but we're right in the village just after the roundabout. If you get lost, we're right beside the diary, and there's only one dairy". Oh, by the way, a dairy is basically a corner store.

My appointment was for a check up and a cleaning. I met with the dentist right away and he had a look and then took some X-rays. He asked if I was having any problems and I told him I was having trouble chewing on one side, but I didn't think it was a big deal. He determined that I had a loose filling and said he would replace it right away. I was just not mentally prepared for him to start drilling right away, so it was a bit traumatic, but I got through. He then asked me to make an appointment for the following week for the cleaning and to have another filling on the other side.

I had my second appointment today and the dentist greets me and starts prodding around. He said he wouldn't have to do much drilling and said I wouldn't need any anesthetic, at which point I almost choked on his instruments. Kids in NZ get free dental care in school and my co-worker told me that when she was a child (she's about my age) they got fillings with no anesthetic because "kiwi kids are tough". Well, I'm not nearly so tough so I was terrified at the thought of a filling with no freezing. Oh yes, apparently kiwis have no idea what you mean when you say "freezing" at a dentist. I think it's because they've never a snow ball thrown in their face so have no idea what an actual frozen face would feel like. The dentist proceeded with the cleaning (yes the dentist - not his assistant). He didn't use any of the awful tasting polish that dentists in Canada use. After the cleaning he asked me if it was OK for him to do the filling without the anesthetic, to which I agreed. And he was right - it was fine and I didn't have wait the rest of the day for the freezing to come out so I could eat properly.

I don't have any dental insurance as it's not very common here. I could purchase some through work, but it's quite expensive and doesn't cover very much. But even though the dentist did all of the work himself, my total cost for 2 visits including 2 fillings, checkup with x-rays and cleaning was $300NZ. I thought that wasn't too bad. Oh and the other nice thing is that they recommend a cleaning only once a year so I have a whole 12 months to forget about the whole ordeal.