Vanity Insanity

I had not been to see my dentist in 3 years. Not really on purpose. I like to take care of my teeth. It's just that my last check up should have been in the late stages of my pregnancy, and I just didn't make it.
And then with the babies, I barely made it to the grocery store. There was no time or energy left for frivolous activities like oral health. But then I got a letter from my dentists office. If you had a cleaning in the month of August, you qualify for a free whitening.
Yahoo! If the fear of my teeth rotting out of my head isn't enough to get me in, a pretty white smile is!

So 3 weeks, and my third appointments later I was again at my dentists office getting my nice white smile. And I knew within the first 5 minutes that I was going to regret it. Now, I have sensitive teeth to begin with. The strips are bad enough. I'm not sure what made me think that super-blast-power-hard-core bleach was going to be easier to deal with. But I'm tough. I could suck it up. As the sharp shooting pains came and went, I endured. Not quite to the 60 minute end, but nearly to the 45 minute mark. And the hygenist kept making remarks hinting that she knew what I was in for all along and probably wouldn't make it, but she was optimistic nonetheless.

I couldn't get out of that chair fast enough. And then I thought the worst was over. I should have figured it out when the hygenist gave me a handful of Advil packets and the way out and suggested I could take 4 at a time, and more Tylenol on top of that if I needed it. I spent the rest of the day with terrible aching tooth pain, with the occasional piercing shooting pain. It was worse than the cleaning and the filling put together. I felt truly horrible last night. The next time I even think of whitening my teeth, I'm going to poke myself in the eye with sticks instead.

But I do have a really pretty white smile* today.

*not my real smile, but isn't it pretty?