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Dentist
I finally managed to resume my dental check-ups after they were disrupted by Covid, the last two having been due five years ago. My old (German) dentist had left the practice in the meantime, and the new one gave me the most rapid and cursory inspection I think I've ever had, despite the fact that she had never seen my mouth before and it has quite a lot of abnormalities. She didn't even (audibly) clock the fact that one of the front teeth is an implant thanks to a childhood accident, though she noted the ones that had been extracted for alignment purposes.
Then she immediately prompted that I ought to have a dental X-ray "to detect unseen decay", which I don't think I've ever had suggested for a routine check-up before; I've had plenty of them in my time for radical treatment purposes so was a bit hesitant to increase my lifetime dose. But since it was five years since my last check-up and she had not detected any problems at all by inspection I thought I'd probably better go ahead with it.
The dentist and her assistant very carefully left the room before each exposure was taken. However, unlike all previous X-rays I've experienced, as the patient I didn't even get so much as a lead sheet for protection! I dare say they have evolved ultra-low radiation, ultra-fine-focus dental X-ray equipment since I last had any heavy work done, but for the purposes of a routine check-up it did strike me as unfortunately reminiscent of the days when people used to be given casual foot X-rays for fitting purposes every time they went into a shoe shop...
Still zero problems reported (she didn't even mention the ongoing and incurable ones that I know about until I prompted her), so presumably all genuinely is O.K. And I'm quite certain that the subsequent facial ache is entirely psychosomatic :-p
Whatever the other issues with my teeth, they have always been strong, yellow, and very decay-resistant, despite my habit of chain-eating sweets on occasion, so it's probably true that I successfully got away with five years of no check-ups. But so far as inspection went I don't feel that I got my £27·50-worth -- and I shall turn down the X-ray offer next time!
Then she immediately prompted that I ought to have a dental X-ray "to detect unseen decay", which I don't think I've ever had suggested for a routine check-up before; I've had plenty of them in my time for radical treatment purposes so was a bit hesitant to increase my lifetime dose. But since it was five years since my last check-up and she had not detected any problems at all by inspection I thought I'd probably better go ahead with it.
The dentist and her assistant very carefully left the room before each exposure was taken. However, unlike all previous X-rays I've experienced, as the patient I didn't even get so much as a lead sheet for protection! I dare say they have evolved ultra-low radiation, ultra-fine-focus dental X-ray equipment since I last had any heavy work done, but for the purposes of a routine check-up it did strike me as unfortunately reminiscent of the days when people used to be given casual foot X-rays for fitting purposes every time they went into a shoe shop...
Still zero problems reported (she didn't even mention the ongoing and incurable ones that I know about until I prompted her), so presumably all genuinely is O.K. And I'm quite certain that the subsequent facial ache is entirely psychosomatic :-p
Whatever the other issues with my teeth, they have always been strong, yellow, and very decay-resistant, despite my habit of chain-eating sweets on occasion, so it's probably true that I successfully got away with five years of no check-ups. But so far as inspection went I don't feel that I got my £27·50-worth -- and I shall turn down the X-ray offer next time!