Cavity

This week, as I sat in the dentist chair with my half numb mouth open wide so a man could drill deep into my bicuspid and a woman could suck up my tooth-dust-filled saliva with a little hose, I began to wonder about the little cavity that landed me in this predicament. As a kid, I was never really given a good explanation of what a cavity was (other than its arrival was my fault) or bothered to pursue an answer. I just assumed the dentist knew what he was talking about and I didn’t do a good job brushing my teeth. I thought it best not to question the the man who was holding a sharp metal object in my mouth and knew that I had lied about flossing daily. Eventually I grew to accept the fact that every couple of years I would probably receive a shot of novocain, have a hole drilled in a tooth, have a filling jammed in the hole and be given a cheap toothbrush as a reminder that this all could have been avoided.

To find distraction from the sound of the drill and the disheartening smell of tooth dust, I found myself revisiting the explanation of a cavity I created as a 7 year old. I developed a theory that a cavity is a tiny piranha-like creature swimming around my mouth and eating the leftover candy lodged in between my teeth. Occasionally his overzealous chomping would accidentally include bits of my teeth leaving little holes in the process. My dentist’s comments like ‘you have a cavity’ ‘we need to get rid of this cavity’ and ‘good news, no cavities this time’ led me to believe that there was something in my mouth that needed to be caught and removed. It didn’t help that the dentist always seemed like he was hunting for something in my mouth, intensely checking every nook and cranny with what looked like a mini harpoon. At a time when I believed in a bunny that delivered chocolate eggs and a fairy who exchanged used teeth for cash, it wasn’t much of a leap to develop my cavity theory.

These days, I am wise enough to know that a cavity probably is not some elusive sugar crazy creature that my dentist has been chasing around my mouth like Captain Ahab for the past two decades, but I was still unsure of the exact mechanics of a cavity. I would have asked my dentist exactly what a cavity was, but I wanted to get out of that chair as quickly as possible without seeming like a moron.

Turns out, much to my disappointment, that a quick internet search or someone that knows anything about personal hygiene will quickly tell you that a cavity is not a microscopic sharp toothed fish, rather it is just the name for the hole caused by tooth decay brought about by acid produced by bacteria eating sugars and carbohydrates in your plaque which over time dissolves the enamel on your tooth. There is tons of information on the science and history of the cavity, but I quickly lost interest after learning that a cavity wasn't a tiny creature swimming around my mouth eating candy.