How to torture Dichroic: Tie her in a chair and don't let her talk or
read.
My teeth hurt. This is what last night entailed:
1) tech inserts ducklips in my mouth (you know, those things
orthodontists and so on use to force your mouth open and your lips wide).
2)
tech inserts various other bits of gauze, puts orange goggles on me, sunscreen on
my lower face, and aloe on my lips.
3) I begin thinking, "I know this is
going to hurt eventually, so I really wish she wouldn't use up ten minutes of my
pain-free time with the preparation."
4) tech begins telling about how she
gave her mother a dog for the latter's 83rd birthday, while adjusting bits of
gauze. I begin to appreciate having gear in place that prevents betrayal of what a
spectacularly bad idea this sounds like, given that tech never once mentions
conferring with mother to figure out if she actually wants and can take care of a
live dog.
5) tech finishs up with a bit of wet gauze on my nose and a big
gauze triangle over my lower face with a hole cut out for my mouth. She tapes this
and bits of gauze in place, then paints blue protective stuff on my gums and foamy
bleach stuff on my teeth. (I didn't know about the blue and foamy parts at the
time.)
6) tech (finally!) sets high energy UV light pointing at my
mouth.
7) I listen to Harry Potter IV on CD for the next twenty minutes,
having bought headphones on the way over for just this purpose -- fortunately
she'd warned me in advance that I wouldn't be able to read because the light is in
the way.
8) Tech turns light off, sucks away old bleach and paints new
bleach on.
9) I sit there as before for 10 minutes or so, not enjoying the
ducklips and trying to concentrate on Harry's facing the Dementors.
10) My
lower left gum begins to smart. I try to ignore that too.
11) The gum hurts
progressively worse. I make noises to attract someone's attention and they call
the tech over.
12) She hands me a mirror so we can isolate where it hurts
(this is where I see just how silly I look foaming at tahe mouth and with blue
gums) and inserts more gauze, which I didn't think would help at first, but it
eventually does. We agree (she agrees, I grunt with affirmative intention) that I
can last the remaining 8 minutes of this session.
13) I do. Toward the end,
a bit of the bleach edges toward my throat, smarting a bit and convincing me
that's what happened to the gum.
14) She sucks out bleach as before and we
look at the color of the teeth. We agree that since they're about as white as her
whitest little sample tooth we'll stop there, rather than doing the planned third
session and sending me off the charts into fakey-white-beauty-pageant-
land.
15) I look in mirror and am disappointed to see there are still little
brown stains between my teeth.
16) She digs at these a little and announces
that I have "defective" teeth, that these are not stains but missing enamel. I
think but do not say that my preliminary exam two weeks ago would have been a fine
time to make this discovery.
15) She sends me home with instructions to take
a Tylenol before going to bed and not to drink tea or coffee for 48
hours.
I didn't feel much from the teeth at first but they started to
annoy me more in the middle of the night and now it still feels as if I'm biting
down on something very cold. Ow. They are a lot whiter, though - the "defective"
parts don't show unless you're looking at them from two inches away. At least this
is a one time thing, or anyway it is unless I do a touchup with bleach and trays
(included) in a year or so. I gave up on over-the-counter whitestrips and such
because they bugged me almost this much every night.
My gums are
still sore too. I think a little bleach did get on them, or maybe it's sunburn
from the UV light. At least this isn't nearly as bad as having braces
tightened.
I couldn't go this whole morning without tea or coffee
though. Mornings are not a good time for breaking habits. On the other hand my
teeth are so sensitive that I wasn't letting the hot liquid anywhere near them.
I'm drinking iced tea for lunch too, because I figured it was better than Coke and
anyway I didn't want carbonation anywhere near my teeth, but I'm using a straw so
if it touches my teeth at all it's on the back sides. Or so my theory goes.