Dental care in the days of yore

People are always amazed and somewhat horrified that as a child I endured getting cavities fixed without the benefit of Novocaine to stymie the pain.

The truth is I never knew local anesthetics existed until I was grown up and went to a different dentist who looked at me in wonder when I told him I’d never had Novocaine.

It was not long ago that I quizzed my mother about why our dentist chose to inflict pain on us without the benefit of drugs.

“Well, I suppose we could have gotten Novocaine, but I guess it would have cost more,” she answered matter-of-factly.

What?

We endured all those years of unspeakable pain because my parents wanted to save a few bucks? It was an astounding revelation. There was no sympathy for what we’d endured, because my parents likewise had taken the painful but economical route.

All those years we figured there was no other option other than to put up with the pain.

Let me give you a little insight into those early trips to the dentist. Once a year our parents would collect us from school about noon and drive to the dental office in nearby Barnesville, Minn., where we would spend the entire afternoon in the waiting room, listening to the persistent, unrelenting drilling on the other side of the wall — zzzzz, zzzz, zzzz — until it was our turn in the torture chamber.

Thinking back on it now, that old dental office probably was the perfect setting for one of Norman Rockwell’s slice of Americana paintings ... a gentlemanly old dentist, worn leather chair, white porcelain spittoon (these were the days before dental hygienists continuously sucked the saliva out of your mouth), an oak cupboard that reached to the ceiling and trays of glistening silver tools.

What we saw as kids was something akin to the famous scene from the thriller film “Marathon Man,” when the Nazi dentist and war criminal drills into Dustin Hoffman’s teeth — without anesthetic — while repeatedly asking the question, “Is it safe?”

If anything, the anesthetic-free dental care we received was a big incentive to brush your teeth. But try as we might, the occasional cavity still needed to be filled. One year my middle brother had six cavities and we were sure he was going to perish before the doc was done with him.

We all survived to tell the stories, and don’t think that I didn’t use my past pain to make a point with my own children when they whined about going to the dentist. All I had to do was pull out the old “When I was young...” story and it immediately dispelled any perceived misery on their part.

Thankfully I didn’t develop dental phobia or post-traumatic stress disorder from my childhood ordeal. Dental care these days is a breeze and it’s been years since I’ve had a cavity. I’ll admit, though, that any time I’m sitting in the waiting room and I hear the drone of the drill, some small part of me still winces in pain.

 Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com