It was pretty horrific. Fifteen or so years of tartar and plaque, scrapped off by a detirmined little Italian woman who worked like she should have been wearing a hard hat.After forty minutes of anguish, I gargled and rinsed a mouthful of gristle-flecked blood and wondered how Tina had ever talked me into this miserable experience in the first place.
But the doctor came in and gave me the thumbs up. When it comes to my pearly off-whites, I am apparently very lucky.
I guess that's because, when I was growing up, my parents took me to the dentist and made me brush my teeth. Living on a farm also meant I had lots of fresh milk and cheese to eat which helped develop the fine set of crooked tombstones lodged in my jaw.
But even good foundations are prone to crumble, the dentist warned. I wasn't really in much of a condition to argue, witnesing the amount of calcified lumps I'd just had hacked and jackhammered off my enamel. Apparently fifteen years is not an appropriate length of time to leave between visits to the dentist!
Why had it been so long? Well, looking at it philisophically, I think my attitude was the same as the average dogs. Given the choice, he's not going to volunteer for a visit to the vets.
But it wasn't just that. Once I'd flown the family coup, seeing a dentist in the UK became a pretty daunting proposition.
The National Health Care service theoretically provides all British subjects access to nationalised dental care. In reality, this system has utterly collapsed.
In order to receive subsidised dental care (which you still need to pay for) you have to register with a dentist who has openings in his limited rota of NHS customers. Finding such a dentist is a real challenge - since there's no 'catchment' area like for NHS general practitioners. You can wind up having to sign up with a dentist who lives an hour or more away.
As an article in The State revealed:
Brits gum up the works with super glue
Few health service dentists leads to resourcefulness
By THOMAS WAGNER - The Associated Press
LONDON — A shortage of National Health Service dentists in England has led some people to pull their own teeth — or use super glue to stick crowns back on, a study says.
Many dentists abandoned Britain’s publicly funded health care system after reforms backfired, leaving a growing number of Britons without access to affordable care.
“I was not surprised to hear those horror stories,” said Celestine Bridgeman, 41, of London.
“Trying to find good NHS dentists is like trying to hit the lottery because the service is underfunded.”
That's why, when Tina and I lived in the UK, we never actually got around to signing up with a dentist. We didn't have access to the NHS care and couldn't afford to go private. We just brushed religiously and stayed away from the rock candy.
When we came to America, though, things were different. My job included dental care for just a few dollars per month - which covered visits to the local dentist (within walking distance of our house) who was open over the weekends and up until 9pm.
What an astounding proposition. Simply unheard of in the UK. A dentist near where you live who can see you at a time convenient to your schedule.
That's how I got conned into the appointment - and emerged with tender gums and strange obsession with licking the back of my newly-ridgy teeth.
All things considered, it's probably a good thing that I'm braving visits to the dentist. I just think it's kind of ironic that access to dental care is cheaper and more convenient in Big Bad America than it ever was in England. The biggest complaint British expats make about the Land of the Free is that healthcare isn't - free, that is.
But when it comes to dental work, the 'free' service in the United Kingdom delivers exactly what you paid for it - nothing.
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