I’ve been with the same dentist for over 30 years. He is now in partnership with his son, so I can anticipate continuing with this practice for many more years. Both dentists are very personable, have a good understanding of my needs and my family’s needs. They are excellent at what they do. I originally went to this practice based on a recommendation by one of my teaching colleagues. This was the first time I ever had to pay for my own dental work; I wanted to make sure that I picked the right practice. This wasn’t the case growing up, where I had no choice. My parents, both immigrants from Germany, were the people that chose who was going to deal with my teeth as I grew up. Unfortunately for me finding the best dentist wasn’t necessarily their highest priority.
Not having much money they always chose the an inexpensive way to get my teeth dealt with. Each of the dentists that treated me, up until when I was in my 20s, had their own unique style and way of dealing with me.
My first dentist happened to be the brother of my aunt. Though he wasn’t a blood relative, blood is what comes to mind in the short time that he dealt with me. Dr. Lawrence was the one who slipped with the drill while working with a cavity in my mouth. I still have the scar inside my cheek from that fateful event. I’m not sure if this was the reason that my parents decided to find a new dentist or not, but needless to say, I didn’t want to go back to Dr. Lawrence.
The next dentist that I had was Dr. Guenther. Dr. Guenther was my dentist throughout most of my pre-adolescent years. He happened to be a second cousin to my father. Dental visits to him weren’t very frequent as he worked in Queens and we lived in the Bronx. It took about an hour, including a number of subway switches, to get to his office. Dr. Guenther was a dentist from the old school. Either he wasn’t very well versed in the use of pain killers (nitrous oxide and/or Novocain) or he chose not to use much of the pain killers that were available at the time, since he probably wasn’t getting the full rate for my teeth, being a relative and all. I should point out that even though I never wore braces, my teeth were not in the best condition. I had numerous cavities when I was young and had a number of baby teeth that had to be pulled as my adult teeth began to grow over them. This meant that pain was usually involved when working on my teeth.
As I’ve written about earlier, my mother used to work for the Fanny Farmer Candy Company. When she left that position, she tried her hand at working with a pediatrician, since she loved working with kids. That didn’t last very long. Her next occupation was that of a dental assistant for Dr. Dee.
This meant that our family would get discounts for using him as our dentist. It also helped that he was also located in the Bronx, within walking distance of our house. I would get to see a dentist more frequently. With a new dentist, I decided that I needed to have a plan to deal with pain. My mouth was always open in the dental chair and it was nigh on impossible to tell the dentist when he was hurting me, so I set up a system whereby by raising my arm I was giving him a signal that pain was involved and he should stop what he was doing. Dr. Dee was an excellent dentist. I loved going to him. He did relatively pain free dentistry. Unbeknownst to me he also was a master of deception. Before he would work on my teeth, he would use a Q-tip coated with some mint tasting paste and put it on the gum layer near the tooth he was going to work on. This paste was meant to numb the area so he could work on me without me feeling pain. After a minute or so he would tell me that he was going to poke the area to see if it was numb enough yet. I never paid any attention to what he was poking me with; I always assumed that it was the pointy tool (dental pick) that he used to scrape my teeth. What he actually did was inject me with Novocain. The pointy thing was his injection needle. It wasn’t until years later that I discovered what he had been doing. But it worked. My mouth was numb and I was never the wiser.
Unfortunately my mother only lasted with Dr. Dee for a few years and then was fired. This meant that I was going back to Dr. Guenther.
– to be continued.
Honored and flattered – of course I enjoyed reading it and will pass it along to Eric. You have been a gift to treat all these 30 plus years – I do really appreciate you and your family – I always felt that people like you were the reasons why my son went into DDS. I guess he picked up on the privilege, trust, satisfaction, warmth, whatever that emanates from our relationships – sincerely Ron