I always like thinking about other people's dentist horror stories to make me feel better about my own predicament. I think my favourite one has to be from one of my old housemates.

In my second year of uni I lived with a girl called Steph, or 'the lesbian' as I referred to her in here, merely for distinguishing purposes (there were seven of us in that house at one point).

Now Steph has a toothy story and a half. Going back to when she was a teen, she was told by her dentist she had something wrong with one of her upper teeth (root defect, irrepairable decay...I forget the exact problem) and it'd have to be removed in the near future.

Steph was not happy with this and being the plucky brave girl that she was, set about removing the offending tooth by herself. I believe the method involved a lot of waggling with a pair of pliers until it was loose enough to be pulled out with little difficulty. Alcohol was also involved. For Dutch courage, naturally. In fact, without a doubt, more alcohol than was good for her was involved...

She didn't throw up, get alcohol poisoning or even fall over knocking herself out. If she'd done each of those things as well as, in a moment of madness, breaking a grand piano with a sledgehammer she'd still probably have been better off.

...

She'd pulled out the wrong tooth.

...

The damage was that Steph ended up having to go back to the dentist to have the correct tooth removed, having the injections et al she so greatly feared. On top of this, she ended up with a visable and very sizeable gap in her mouth, leaving her parents no choice but to pay for a titanium implant at a cost of £1,500.

To this day she has never told them the truth and maintains that the gap had always been there.

And I wish I could say I made that whole thing up. After writing that down my mouth ulcer doesn't seem to hurt as much any more.

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