to call myself a coward when it comes to the dentist is not actually quite fair, i've considered this over many years. 30 in fact, since i last saw a dentist. i'm an obsessive teeth cleaner, and i am sophisticated in my dental product knowledge for the last few years i use miswak toothpaste from saudi arabia, which is herbal and suits my palette.
over the 30 years i have not had much problem with my teeth but last week i was kept awake in intense pain as my back upper wisdom teeth rebelled and made themselves known, inferring a pain upon which the like has not been seen since the inquisition. jesus, every night i'd wake up covered in sweat, shuddering and disoriented. i'd stumble to the kitchen where i'd smear high quality organic clove oil into my gum and over my teeth. the effect was instant numbness and therefore relief. two hours of sleep until the clove oil wore off.
i thought perhaps i could just wait it out, psych out the pain, just ride it out. the days i'd wrap myself in a blanket and watch tv smoking weed and attempting to get some relief but to no avail, although i enjoyed smoking until i was numb for an hour or two.
when i was a kid in london the dentists were nightmare figures drawn from dickens novels. i think i was traumatised by being hauled out of skool to visit dentists and have them stick metallic tools and implements in my overstretched mouth. then there was the lights a panorama of them invading my cones and rods. i was very sensitive to light at an early age, burning up my brain, imprinting upon it's young neurons. but it was the fucking drill that clinched it for me, the unbearable torture of intrusion and it's overwhelming sound penetrating any childish illusion. 
the dentists were paid by the state per extraction so we young working class kids were the dentists cash crop. i had fillings when i never needed them. 
under those lights the face of the dentists was distorted and being an imaginative young waif i saw myself in the hands of some sadistic mad doctor with his array of alien implements. 
thus my dental aversion begins.
onwards as i stand outside a big white and blue building with a photograph of a smiling family all with perfect teeth. i take that step through the door, because i am in terrible pain, and i have no choice. 
i explain myself to the dentist and ask for mercy, financial mercy as well as physical. 
she takes me into a small room and places me on a comfortable reclining chair, puts some glasses upon me, cool dark shades and then i find myself sinking down as she adjusts the chair.
she straps the mask on, and tells me to breath and i find myself almost relaxing as the nitrous oxide floods into me, wow, i'm so relaxed, my arms flop down. this feels good.
the injections come, i feel nothing. she places some sort of clamp around the teeth and pulls them. i don't really care what she does now, i'm zonked. 
afterwards i can't stop thanking her, she shows me the teeth, big bad molars i donate to the creatures beyond the veil.
blood fills my mouth and she offers me a swab to bite down on, 'don't eat or drink anything for 6 hours, don't smoke.'
'mawahjku shyuggthus,' i respond.
i get my antibiotics and return home, i lay down on my sofa and close my eyes, sleep comes fast but brings with it some horrific nitrous oxide nightmares.