It’s not just a tooth clean - it’s really a jet wash

I have cleaned my teeth. Well, to be precise, I have had my teeth cleaned.

This is completely different to scrubbing the molars with a moth-eaten toothbrush.

My dentist now has something called a dental hygienist. She might have been there all along in her eyrie at the top of the stairs but this was the first time I had been offered her services.

I am sure many of you have encountered the work of a tooth technician but for me it was a totally new experience.

Normally, I get away with a clean at the hands of Carlton the dentist. He probes my gums with a cattle-prod and then scours the enamel with some kind of car jetwash converted to tackle tartar. It never hurts but the word “uncomfortable” comes to mind.

This time, he decided I needed a deep clean to get to the root of the problem. That, quite frankly, sounded frightening. So I was despatched up the stairway to heaven or to hell, depending on your pain threshold.

Lisa gave me a stern talk on how I had not been cleaning my teeth properly for the past 60 years and why I should invest in a flash electric contraption with rotating bristles. It was a bit like swallowing a road-sweeping machine and virtually knocked my teeth out. She spread some kind of cream over my gums and then administered an injection which numbed my mouth. After a session under the floodlight she instructed: “You may swill your mouth out now.”

That was easier said than done. For a start, the economy plastic cup crumpled in my clumsy grasp. And then my mouth failed to spit in the required direction thanks to the cruel effects of anaesthetic.

The toothy-pegs are gleaming but I have been left an emotional wreck. And that’s the tooth...

‘After a session under the floodlight she instructed: “You may swill your mouth out now’