My last dentist in Kerry was lovely. She would talk nicely to you and put you at your ease. She would be be gentle and do things in a relaxed manner. She would pause and check in with me every so often to see if I was okay and not in any sort of pain. She was so very nice…as she prodded and poked, scraped and drilled, filled and extracted. I am prone to gum disease and my teeth would bleed every so often. And every so often I would be prescribed antibiotics and given an extra strong mouth wash to use, along with regular trips to the hygienist. “Some people are just prone to gum disease,” my dentist would say, “there is really nothing you can do about it.” She wasn’t that expensive so I was able to go fairly frequently after many years of neglect. I was comfortable with dentists again.

Last week I went to my new dentist…well it wasn’t really a dentist, I had been very insistently referred by my dentist to a ‘Periodontist.’ A Periodontist is a specialist that specialises in gums and bones. Here there was no, “there’s nothing you can do about it,” but a plan of action to do something to get my mouth healthy again. In spite of the abrupt, bordering on the rude, “you look very pale, are you okay” when I walked in, and the pressing hard on my gums and saying “there is pus coming out!”… I sensed the task to heal me was in hand. I was given a double dose of antibiotics and an appointment to come back in a fortnight so that I can have “my gums opened up and given a deep clean” whilst sitting in the dentists chair for an hour and a half!

Now the big and current question is, what sort of dentist do I really want? Do I want a dentist that has a great reputation in the local area for being a lovely person especially with people who never visit that dental practice. Someone who is never rude to the stranger. Do I want someone who tries to make sure that their practice is visited by all and sundry because they don’t charge a great deal?

Or maybe I would prefer someone who promises health and healing but who also says that this comes at a great cost and probably a bit of pain! Someone whose practice is quite exclusive. A dentist who tells it to me straight and is not concerned that I might find them rude or off putting. Someone who shows me their catalogue of all the lives that have been transformed by their ‘out of this world’ mouth care!

It’s an interesting choice, worth pondering on. In the meantime, keep brushing and rinsing…and praying.