7 years ago...

Its been 7 years since I visited a dental hygenist. Now, its not that I've been neglecting my teeth on purpose, its just how it turned out.

Before I moved from America to England I made one last appointment with the dentist, 1999. I had a good cleaning and was set to go. Once I got to the UK, I never really had any problems with my teeth. We moved around quite a bit so it was more difficult to find a dentist we liked, etc. Once we settled in Worthing we did go in for a checkup. But its different over there, I never had my teeth actually cleaned by anyone. The dentist in the UK just looked at my teeth and said they were fine. Thats it, no cleaning or anything.

I did have to go back for some emergency work after Sophie, our boxer, jumped up and hit me on the mouth making my gums bleed. The dentist cleaned only around my bottom front teeth then, and sent me off with some antibiotics. That was the end of that.

Fast forward to 2007, me and Andrew had our appointment with my old dentist. Keep in mind we made this appointment over 9 months ago! Let me tell ya, having 7 years of junk scrapped off your teeth is PAINFUL. Especially when I had the hygenist that is known to inflict pain.....for a FULL HOUR. My jaw got the twitches and was vibrating away while she kept going and wouldn't let me have a break.
Apparently they didn't clean deep enough in the UK, so I had my gums violated all over again. While it hurts like a bitch, it does look and feel so much better. And I came out pretty good, my next appointment is in August while Andrew has to have a 2nd cleaning in March.

Now, not only did we both get put through an awful lot of pain, x-rays, etc....but we had to pay for the pleasure. They aren't in our dental insurance network, which means we pay the bill up front and the insurance reimburses us. $400 !! I can't even think about it anymore or I'll blow my top. In the UK, the most we paid was about 50 GBP and that was for my emergency check-up.

Ahhh, clean teeth.