My wife is a dentist.  Specifically, she is a prosthodontist.  Her procedures involve using pliers to remove teeth, drilling into the gums to place titanium implants, shoving needles into the hard palette, and many other gruesome tortures that seem spawned from the Spanish Inquisition.  And at times, she calls me up and asks me to sit chair-side as her dental assistant.  While I sit there, holding the suction and keenly watching the patient in the chair, I have compiled an extensive mental database on human psychology.  Specifically, the psychology of pain.

Before I start, let’s watch this inspirational video from Rocky 3.  Enjoy:

It’s easy to overlook that Mr. T is only 5′ 8″ when you watch this clip.  PAAAAAAAIN.

With that out of the way here’s my thesis: Human beings deal with pain in basically two ways and each of these ways is uniquely manifested by gender.  Men and women.  I know this because I see people dealing with intense oral agony and their faces, bodies, and at times moaning and groaning is as clear an indication of how different types of human beings suffer.  Sometimes nobly.  Sometimes not.

The dentist is perhaps the most dreaded, hated, and feared occupation in Western civilization.  Now that torture is supposedly not allowed, all of the crazy sadistic bastards that would have been the “bamboo shoots up the finger tips” guy now become Dr. Weiss, your friendly neighborhood orthodontist.  It’s not a profession, it’s a life calling.  Case in point:

And I get to sit and watch these poor bastards with their hearts laid bare sitting in the cold chair with the pale light shining in their mouth.  There have been people that have cried.  There have been people that have moaned.  There have been people that have prayed, begged, and chickened out and left the chair.  I have seen most everything, including some of the worst dental hygiene outside of England.  I’ll spare you the worst details … maybe in a future column.

Tough People

The first type are the tough people.  Men sit there unmoving, unflinching.  Sometimes my wife pauses to ask them if they are awake.  Often times they refuse the anesthetic if its not completely necessary because they don’t want to suffer the ignominy of a slack lip and lines of drool from the mouth to the front of your T-shirt.  I like to think of these men as Rambo.  And these men are rare.

For the record … I AM one of these men.  Hehe.  No really, I’m being serious.  Here’s an example: I went in to have my wife do some fillings on my upper, first molar.  I not only refused to take any anesthetic, but I also insisted on having the dental nurse take photos of me clowning around while my wife was drilling.  I’m a warrior.  I’m Darth Maul.

Still need proof?  Ask my buddy Glock about the time I put out a cigarette on the back of my hand on a dare while we were chilling at Willy’s.  Not even a wince.  Yes, I do have a scar that persists to this day and, Yes, I felt a little demented after I did it, but its a fact that I have caveman pain endurance.  It’s like my superpower.  My only superpower.  Remarkable (30).

The tough ladies on the other hand are universally women that have three or more children.  These are Mothers.  The pain of childbirth is the huge trump card.  I’ll see a woman in her 60s sit in the chair, grey hair, stretchy pants and sensible shoes.  She’s scared and asks a few questions about the needles.  She promises to try to be brave for my wife.  When the injection comes, not a movement, not a sound.  I always smile because I have such appreciation for these women.  Good on you.

This was the type of woman my grandmother was.  I came home from school back in 1994 and raced right up stairs to practice my dance moves to Salt-n-Pepa.  About 30 minutes later, I hear my grandma calling me feebly at the bottom of the stairs.  I go to see what she needs and there she is holding her arm on a small pillow.  Her wrist was swolen to the size of a softball.  She looks at me with meek eyes and asks, “if you’re not too busy, can you drive me to the hospital.”  Good Lord.  She had broken her arm falling on the walk home from work.

Another story.  She separated her shoulder on another fall later in life.  At the hospital, the doctor told her that they needed to give her pain medicine.  It would extend her time in the hospital by an hour while it took effect.  My grandma said just pop in back in.  No medicine.  The doctor shrugged his shoulders and warned her … this will hurt.  She set her lip and everyone knew she was decided.  So he reset her shoulder.  She didn’t make a sound.  Tough ole bird.

The Wussies

On the other side of the equation there are those that do not handle pain well.  Or in the attempt to be nice … do not handle pain as well.  Again, this is expressed distinctly by gender.  Men are conditioned to not weep at the first twinge of phantom aches.  Sports, father, TV, older brother, whatever.  Most of us have gone through life dealing with pain from indiscriminate sources.  So even the weakest of us will try to put on a brave face.

When a guy that is not good with pain has to deal with it … they have one coping technique.  They tense all of their muscles, grit their teeth, and attempt to power through the hurt.  As if their muscles are going to allow them to somehow pull a Rambo when their heart is skipping like a girl in pigtails.  White knuckles, rigid body, and twisting feet.

Then there are the wussy women.  Most of the women in my life are not of this variety.  I’ve already illustrated how bad ass my grandma was and my wife takes it to another level.  12-time Australian Junior Karate Champion.  My sister, Trish, college softball player that got on the team by making a full body tackle in a flag football game in front of the varsity coach.  Multiple broken bones, punching boys in the mouth, and more.  Tough women.  Sarah Conner tough.

So when I see wussy women, I don’t have a lot of sympathy.  For one big reason.  Women innately have a higher threshold of pain.  Its part of the genetic package that comes with estrogen and a uterus.   Men pee standing up, women can take more pain.  Nature’s balancing act.  Women that shake and flail in the moment of truth are not succumbing to pain.  They are succumbing to fear.

There was a woman in the chair just this week (the inspiration for this column) with teeth like rotten pieces of caramel candy stuck in puckered gums filled with cottage cheese.  Her breath smelled like sour milk.  Her teeth were so loose that I think a strong sneeze would have cleared her front row.  They literally wiggled like green twigs.  It was disgusting.  My wife gives her the injections to numb her teeth, gums, tongue, cheeks, and the lot.  Lots of moaning, crying, and even post-adrenaline shakes.

My wife picks up her pliers and reaches over to begin the first extraction.  Before the pliers even touch the teeth, the woman yells out in pain, begging for more happy juice.  What the Hell?  My wife laughed out loud.  ”I haven’t even touched you yet.”  The woman was inconsolable and indignant.  I wanted to choke her out and gouge out her eyes with the suction.

Makes me sick.  I have no sympathy for people that give in to irrational fear.  I don’t see how these people would have made it through life a hundred years ago.  Two hundred years ago.  A thousand years ago.  Life was pain back then.  Its like we’re breeding a new race of fainting sheep.

I will tell you with utmost certainty that there is no procedure in the dentist’s chair that cannot be handled with quiet dignity and enduring.  Remember that the next time you have a visit and try not to be a wussy.

Cowboy up, America.