Background: I last visited a dentist when I was 18, some 27 years ago. The experience was horrendous.   The Dentist scared the living daylights out of me and I fainted at the reception desk on my way out – it was that bad. Needless to say that’s how my phobia probably started. Over the intervening years my top teeth gradually got worse and worse.

14^th August 2007: I woke up in the early hours of the 14^th August with an abscess – luckily not in any pain but my face was badly swollen. Unable to go to work and not being registered with any dentist it left me with no option but to seek help. Luckily my wife new this situation would probably arise at some point and had already trawled the Internet looking for a dentist who might be able to help. She already had Dr Mike Gow’s site hidden away on the laptop.   

After reading an account of someone else’s experience, which seemed similar to my own situation, I plucked up the courage to phone. 

A pleasant sounding girl answered the phone and after I explained my problem she said she would get Dr Gow to call me back – this was at 9 O’clock.  Mike phoned me back at 10.30am after what seemed an eternity but even over the phone he seemed to have some sort of calming influence. By lunchtime I was sitting in his surgery calmly talking to him.  He really put me at ease – no lectures, no poking or prodding. He suggested that sedation would be my best option and he explained how this would work.

After an hour I left, antibiotics in hand, and really pleased with myself that I had taken the first step to getting my smile back.

22^nd August: Second visit to see Mike.  An x-ray was taken – took just 14 seconds!! - Then it was time for Mike to have a really good look around my mouth.   Again he was very reassuring and gentle – no rough treatment here. I was already resigned to losing all my top teeth but to my surprise Mike said that some of them could possibly be kept.

29^th August:Third visit and this time impressions are taken of both top and bottom teeth and a detailed treatment plan is drawn up. After some deliberation it was decided that the plate would fit better if all the top teeth were extracted.

6^th September: D Day – the previous eight days were bit of a rollercoaster – fine so long as I didn’t think about what was about to happen to me!!  

As I lay in the chair, brow perspiring, stomach churning and feeling as though I’m about to breathe my last, Mike administered the Sedation cocktail – within seconds I felt totally calm.  I could not feel a thing although I knew Mike was putting local anaesthetic all round my top gums. The whole procedure, 14 extractions, was over in what seemed to be about half an hour, the reality was that it took 1hour 40 mins.   

At 12.30 I left with a brand new smile – amazing!!

The aftermath

I look totally different – I’ve got top teeth and a smile again. After the anaesthetic wore off I thought maybe this is when the pain will kick in – it didn’t. 

By the following day bleeding had all but stopped and within a few days I could chew on soft food – albeit rather gingerly.

I’m actually looking forward to my next visit now and completing my treatment!!