The last time at my dental hygienist

Two days ago, a tooth that belonged to an ancient giant shark has been stolen from a World Heritage Site in Australia.

Disclaimer: the following monograph means only to convey personal experience and ignores the serious health issues of the chronically, painfully or terminally ill for the sake of writing up an (authentic) personal anecdote. Nor can I address the very real situation where health-care practitioners sexually abuse their patients. I mention in passing only the inverse.

A visit to my dental-hygienist, always helps to ground me back in the life of flesh and blood. Not least of all, because it means I talked to another human-being, face to face. She was one of two women I saw on a regular basis, in the past years of relative social isolation: my physiotherapist I see monthly, and my dental-hygienist, every three months. The history of my teeth (formerly known as “bleeps”) and any of the many dentist’s I tried (formerly known as “the bleep”) is long and intense, and I shall spare you my traumas which went well beyond any major pathologically dental (formerly “bleep”) issues.

My dental-hygienst has quit, as of today, after 20 years of practice (at her home) to start a new phase in her life (at 45). From now, on she will be available for consultations as an orthomolecular nutritionalist - mainly treating obesity but also coaching burn-out patients. She can help you design a stress-free life-style and teach you how to rebalance your hormone messaging system (for example with a gluten-, casein-, and lactose-free diet).

I went to her for ten of those years she practiced, and have seen her develop into an ever more authentic person over time. We went through eachother’s ups and downs in a fairly superficial manner, until it became apparent, that underneath the particulars our lives had remarkable, albeit somewhat intangible parallells. It would take both of us becoming a freer, truer female self (not just mother, or carer, or wife or daughter) before this hue of soul we have in common would become apparent to either of us. She is not a studious person, and I have very little contact with people; she is the mother of four (!) and has only ever known one partner; she has Facebook friends who like fitness; so the contrasts stick out more than any similarities, at first sight.

As a client you are, in a healthy way, subjected to the authority of a health-care professional in a manner that rules out a fully reciprocal relationship. In addition, the equal-footing is compromised by the patient's inevitable nerves as they surrender their bodies into the care of a relative stranger. We appoint these people as the correctors of our imperfections. They come to us with criticism or lessons (with a new tooth-pick technique or some bad news about your lateral incisor). It would hardly be my place to explain to her, why her back has been acting up lately, even if I can read her aura. I might drop a hint, how ginger creates heat and it might not help with insomnia to drink this tea before sleep - but I keep it light-hearted and refrain from specifics.

Her first gift to me was her gentle touch (I formerly had an Egyptian butcher, prohibited from practicing dentistry in Europe for the discrepancies in certification, so he found himself relegated to dental-hygiene, and he clearly was disgruntled about it. There seemed to be some release from this frustration in the inflicting of significant amounts of pain). Her greatest gift to me, however, is harder to pin. My visits to her (in a house with a view across fields with cows and sheep, bordering on woods- in a city!) somehow became milestones, through the seasons, for my personal progress. It was a calibrating moment, to sit in the car and find my equilibrium (try to relax my jaw) before going in to meet her. The appointment reset me for the next three months, breaking up the monotonous work of self-realisation into check-in moments; although none of this was consciously planned (unlike it will be now, in her new work).

From nervous beginnings, the visits to her practice became little pick-me ups, and eventually grew into extened chats in the chair for up to an hour (fortunately I am well insured for my dental work).

At first, though, the fact that I paid her for all of that time (however indirectly) added to the pragmatic tone of our relationship, and indeed, it would have made me more nervous if it had lacked this professional side. It could therefore not be called a friendship, but I can see how patients get confused (especially male clients of a female dental-hygienist or physiotherapist - both my ladies have their fair share of unpleasant stories to tell!). Eventhough she probably saw me more regularly than some of her actual friends, and I disclosed quite a bit of my life to her, and furthermore we shared a common interest in alternative medicine and health food, Christmas cards, e.g. were not reciprocal and I only heard about the passing of her mother at my next visit, three months later.

You know how you end up telling your hairdresser your holiday plans, but feel akward about asking her about hers in return - if only because you realise she would have to tell the same story ten times a day, fifty times a week and you probably are not even interested; well, I don’t go to hairdressers much, but I know how this is supposed to go for a relationship with a dental-hygienist, as well, even if they allow you into their home. They have the perfect hair or teeth and you are the one in need of their assistance.

Notwithstanding, research has shown that people who are nice to their doctors and dentists (but also waiters and hairdressers) get better treatment/service. Just that little bit more of a personal touch. Being nice makes you human and that makes your doctor more human (if only a little),

It's a fine line between feeling inferior or superior to your chosen assistant. Not always, do we feel a need to be truly grateful, and often we end up weighing up the costs or comparing prices instead of relating on a more meaningful level to eachother. Fact remains that with most of these people you "need to see" you would otherwise never get along for more than five minutes, at a cocktail party.

In the beginning my dental-hygienist knew more about me than I about her, until in our last two years (8 visits) I went through the loss of her mother, the self-mutilation of her daughter, the cocaine addiction of her brother, the strained relations with her superficially-minded twin, her newfound anger that speaks up for herself and against her father’s remarriage to a gold-digger, the swingers in her posh neighbourhood, her five-day silent retreat on a buddhist homestead, her Reiki mastership, the bronze male torso she sculpted without lessons (complete with genetalia, which, however, she didn’t do herself); on top of all that, I got a tour of the house (for decorating ideas), and finally was invited onto her Facebook page (which I had to decline without a page of my own).

Today, marks the end of a phase, and our client-professional relationship feels more like a guise for significant soul work on both sides. I ended up with a soul-sister and today I have to let go of her again. Such is the work and way of a spiritual life. Fortunately, I am already used to losing a sister....(Ref: Letters To My Sister)

I always wondered what my anxieties (to put it mildly) regards my teeth were actually about, and in the name of spiritual research, I accepted the ordeal of investigating this with all its sacrifices and nightmares.

I underwent relentless years of struggles with my wisdom teeth, which ached ceaselessly and pushed the rest of my teeth out of alignment. I figured out that they acted like hormone messengers, with moments of increased discomfort around my period. But they also picked up on other vibrations which created subtle wells of stress, blocking my nadis. All this went on, well into my mid-forties. The symptoms I coped with along side the daily moaning and rawness, were neuralgia, sites vulnerable to infection, and excessive plaque. All quite disgusting, exhausting and disheartening for someone who eats a healthy sugar-free diet, brushes compulsively and has possibly tried every single brand of alternative toothpaste on the planet.

I could have gone for extractions in my early twenties, but it didn’t feel to me that the troublesome teeth in question were exactly the problem. True enough, they caused no end of problems! I know Jesus said, “if your eye offends you, pluck it out”, but I also know not to shoot the messenger. If we were to deal with all the trouble-makers as the problem, we would never change our society.

Recent research shows too many unneccessary dental procedures are taking place (in western Europe). Notably, the standard extraction of wisdom teeth can actually give complications somewhere down the line (with roots seldom being removed entirely). It is a trend to be done with wisdom teeth as if they merely belonged to the cave man: an evolutionary remnant, like the appendix, or what about earlobes? Shall we take off these useless appendages at birth? Well, let's not go into the sore topic of what else we remove shortly after birth, and how traditions might no longer serve us.... At any rate, the removal of tonsils is no longer in fashion. Once we learn more about the fourfold-nature of man (physical, etheric, astral and I) such surgical or invasive solutions should be replaced by a more subtle and intelligent self-regulating, "spiritual" medicine (not to be confused with "faith healing"!)

Regards my phobia, I opted for the psychological self-treatment of steady exposure to my afeared subject. I embarked on studies that could almost set me in dentistry school, but then especially studying all I could find on alternative dental health care. I was never too quick to dismiss conventional dental practice but soon leaned heavily towards findings not supported by this practice, for example that the fluoride industry is an extortionist hoax. Don’t get me started on standard orthodontistry, either.

I learned to read my teeth as cosmic antennae, and I demanded a dentist who treats me like an individual, i.e. an integral whole. But I am still working on finding the right one. Even my anthroposophical dentist did not do much to tackle my fears (but I left him after he fell off his horse and broke his neck - don't worry he still lives). I currently have a female dentist, but it is clear she is under tremendous pressures to conform, and almost refused me as a patient for not using fluoride toothpaste and refusing bi-annual x-rays (every 3-4 years suffices in my opinion, for now). (Just to make it clear, outside the fact that my teeth are higgledy-piggledy, they have always been in good health, minus the few years I could not eat well enough due to the neuralgia - and my depression - and lamentably smoked and drank too much wine, which needless to say, compromised my gum health.)

It took me until all this time, up until recently before I could examine my own teeth with my lenses in and use any words connoting teeth (like "canine" or "dendrites"). It is still not my favorite thing to do.... But I have come very far, and today give myself a tiny pat on the back.

If there is one thing I will not be, it is to be brushed off by an authority and told what to do to my own body, while I have not yet received any such indications from myself. I bow humbly to health-care providers who will do the dirty job of fixing my body where I myself cannot reach, but don’t try to tell me what to think (is wrong with me). Even your X-rays do not persuade me of your conclusions where your solutions do not present holistic answers.

I have seen it too often. Patients start having ailments and then never stop. Finding a holistic dental-hygienist was pivotal to taking control over my own health and facing character flaws (often at the root of things). I hope she goes on to help enhance more lives concretely through dietary advice (eventhough I believe she already was doing this in her dental-hygiene practice). I will miss her support and am already nervous about my new dental hygienist, but that does not stop me from wishing her all the best in her new life.

I wish, also, more dental practices would spend more attention on increasing a holistic awareness. Health begins so much with what we eat, how we eat, why we eat.... Dental offices would make great places for information on all-round healthy life-style choices and energetic body work.

I can't wait for the day when science recognises the existence of the soul. Only then will medicine be revolutionised. There is an unparallelled knowledge on the nature of healing, not found in any textbooks, but only to be arrived at through self-knowledge. You have to put in the work to discover what works for you, and not blindly rely on self-professed authorities. Look back over time to know medical science is one of the most unstable ones. A big thank-you to all those who help us heal, but make no mistake there is nobody who can heal you. They might stich you back together again, or remove a lump, but outside these mechanical procedures you can only trust yourself.

For a short video on the teeth of the prehistoric megalodon shark