Dr. Pain

It would be only a slight exaggeration to say that during a necessary tooth extraction (probably a baby tooth), it felt like the dentist threw a knee across my chest, pried my mouth open and went to work with a pair of pliers that years later I could have identified as Army surplus bolt cutters. After pulling out a tooth that I believe was diametrically opposite from where he put the novocaine, he exclaimed, “Got it!” in a booming voice that sounded like a sportscaster announcing a game-winning field goal. The volume hurt my eardrums, complementing the throbbing in my jaw.

“Oh, they call that dentist ‘Dr. Pain’,” my friend remarked when I recounted my experience. This was my introduction to American dental practice.



I was probably 13 or 14, and remember going to my dental appointments by streetcar. The dentist was a choice out of the phone book. I learned later that he had practiced dentistry while in the Army in World War II, and went into private practice after the war.

A glutton for punishment, I made appointments to have several fillings done, and the experience wasn’t any more pleasant. He did several fillings with silver nitrate. If I touched a filling with a metal spoon or fork, a sharp pain would shoot through my body from head to toe causing me to spit out words that would embarrass George Carlin.

While the physical pain was annoying, the real pain was in the prognosis he volunteered for my dental future. “Your teeth are really bad,” he volunteered. “They’re soft, and you will probably need false teeth by the time you’re 30.

” He may have only been trying to stifle my habit of chewing up ice cubes, or pouring coffee over my half-cup of sugar, but his prediction convinced me that my choppers had a very limited future. I wasn’t particularly negligent about tooth hygiene, but for years I was conscious of Dr. Pain’s unnecessary comments.

Over the years my wife and I rotated our family through a host of dentists, none as crude as my first experience, but we were really not satisfied completely until I discovered a childhood friend whose dad had been a doctor in Dawson. Jim had grown up, become a dentist and had an accessible family dental practice. He just laughed when I related my checkered history of dental care.

“I guess you proved him wrong,” he said of the soft tooth comment, “You still have most of them.” True, at that point I still had the original 32 or 34, or whatever I had before Dr. Pain extricated one by force.

And, with quality care, a few caps and a bridge, I was still eating apples (and still chewing ice cubes). Our family stayed with Jim’s practice until the kids were grown and gone, and possibly due to healthy practice, regular maintenance and fluoridated water had little problems dental wise. The regular maintenance thing always was a problem for me.

I confessed to a dental hygienist during a cleaning and checkup that I had missed a regular appointment. She checked the record. “Yes, that was two years ago,” she offered.

But the impetus for this article came while I was enjoying some beef jerky and remembered the comments of Dr. Pain, some 70 years ago. I am thankful that his prophecy was as poor as his chair-side manner.

Now please excuse me, I’ve got to refill my ice. Roy Hess Sr. is a retired teacher and businessman from Dawson.

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