I pretty good when it comes to car maintenance, though by good I mean I take it for a service every time it hits the 15,000 km mark. Anything else and I’m pretty useless / indifferent. The last time I had an issue with my teeth, I left it for so long that by the time I approached a dentist, they had to pull the tooth.

As you might imagine, I haven’t been to a dentist since. That was 2011.

The other day, much to my annoyance, a big ridge of one of my lower molars chipped / flaked off (I’m not sure as to what was the cause mind you), forcing me to make an appointment with a dentist for the first time in 5 years. I opted to go local, and a quick Google search led me to the practice of Drs Te Boekhorst in Sir Lowry Road (just before the Gordon’s Bay institution that is Ooskus Fisheries).

The practice is run out of a converted home, which is decorated in quite an inviting manner – in fact, I thought I had walked into a crafting store by mistake the first time I entered the premises! :)

Anyway, the primary dentist is currently off on maternity leave (I suspect that might be the titular Dr Emilia Te Boekhorst), so standing in her stead was a friendly young chap by the name of Dr Harry – I didn’t get his last name come to think of it –  who quickly got me in the chair and convinced me to open my mouth.

And there in lay my mistake, because it was pretty much an immediate “Oooh, I think we need to take a couple of quick bite-wing x-rays here.”

Ah yes, there sat all the little black marks, indicating that apart from the flaked molar, I was also sitting with an impressive 8 cavities in my mouth. (Surprising, because I’m quite fastidious when it comes to brushing my teeth twice a day – but not so surprising considering the fact that I never go to the dentist for a routine clean/check up like one should!)

Seeing as it isn’t really safe to deaden all four quandrants of the mouth at once (plus my appointment wasn’t long enough anyway), we decided to split the work over two sessions, the first session (hour long) being dedicated to repairing my molar and the cavity in that one lower quadrant, and the second session a couple of days later (hour and a half long) to take care of the remaining seven cavities in the other three quadrants.

So that was an uncomfortable, numbing experience as you might imagine. Anyway, everything is all fixed up again, though my pocket is a fair bit lighter, with all that work costing me R4,135.

Ouch, dental work, as always and as any other medical-related work I guess, remains a rather expensive exercise.

Sadly, in my numbed state (both times), I completely forgot to take any photos of the practice, meaning that this post will now just have to do with a picture I took of myself and my voter’s mark following our recent municipal elections. (For the record, Gordon’s Bay was won by an overwhelmingly majority vote for the DA).

dav

The dental practice does not seem to have any sort of actual web presence, so here’s a map in case you are looking for them. You can find them at 4 Sir Lowry’s Pass Rd,
Gordon’s Bay, 7140 or contact them on (+27) 021 856 2579.

They do good work.