You know the dental drill: pain, pain, pain and a huge white light

GIVE ME A BREAK:I WOULD RATHER scream in agony through three more natural childbirths than go to the dentist. My phobia means that before I can summon the courage to make an emergency dental appointment, I'm at the "give me an epidural" stage.

My red-hot tooth makes me think fast about where to find a dentist who won’t judge my dental neglect and, more importantly, who will make the experience painless. I recall colleagues recently mentioning a particular dentist, ideal for dentalphobes, who worked near my home. Even so, there was no way I’d face my phobia until a painful abscess in a left-side molar forced me to.

“Mmm, hello, Mary? I’m popping Nurofen Plus and I’m about to go to the Liffey boardwalk for some Valium and maybe some opiates. Who’s that magic dentist you mentioned?” She gives the name. “He’s really good.” How good? Hardened journalist Mary isn’t one for exaggeration. “Very good,” she says.

I ring the number. The woman who answers is so kind that my tooth is starting to feel better already – or else it’s the Nurofen Plus kicking in. If I could possibly hang on until 12.30pm, the dentist would see me.

Three hours elapse, during which my childhood nightmares spring forward: every boiled sweet and chocolate sundae of my 10-year-old life paid for with pain, pain, pain; roots bored into, the drill so loud it’s like a pneumatic on pavement; and that huge white light glaring, like a near-death experience.

My memories are so visceral and haunting that when I was in my favourite city, Madrid, with my brother, paying homage at the Reina Sofia museum to Picasso's Guernica, that the drawings of Dali, Miró and Gris nearly caused a panic attack.

“These are just like the ones Dr X had on the waiting room walls!”

“Dr X!” my brother exclaims, looking pale.

Dr X was an art collector, except that his versions of early 20th-century art involved portrayals of dental instruments. The long metal stick with the mirror on the end was a deconstructionist monster, and the pointy dental scraper-thing was so alive that it seemed dance in a disturbing way.

My brother and I would sit in the waiting room for what felt like hours, trying to distract ourselves with the well-thumbed children's magazines scattered about, but the crosswords and puzzles were already filled in, like our teeth would be within the hour. Dr X was a kindly man working in the context of his time, but I don't think he sat up late reading copies of Anaesthesia World.

Forty years later, terrified, I summon my courage. This dentist is smart: I don’t have to wait. His assistant is at the door and sweeps me down to his high-tech room, where Dr Very Good immediately makes eye contact and pleasant conversation so that I’m in that chair so fast I haven’t time to look around. There’s no big white near-death light, and he is so reassuring. “Root filling,” he casually mentions. “You mean root canal?” I ask, and he nods. Three roots.

The anaesthesia needle is the only painful part (I require a double dose), and when it is over, he says, “You’ve just been through the worst thing that can happen at the dentist.”

Going home pain- and phobia-free is a relief, though paying for it, now that the State has stripped our PRSI benefit away, is the real pain, so I meet my bank manager to appeal for a modest loan. “This is as bad as going to the dentist,” he jokes, as he feeds the numbers into the computer.

The next day the pain revives. Still waiting to hear about my loan, I ring the dentist to say that there’s something horrendous happening in my mouth. And so it’s back in to the swish surgery, and the reassuring manner of my new favourite dentist, who has retrained three times since 1981 (compared with Dr X, who I imagine trained at Belsen).

Dr Very Good photographs my problem and displays it on a computer screen, where I see that the root-filled tooth he dealt with the week before is fine. It's another tooth acting up – so hideous that my mouth looks like a worst-case illustration in a dental journal. There's a vertical fracture, caused by jaw-clenching. Extraction is the only option. Now thisis the worst thing that can happen at the dentist.

“You’re a star! You did really well!” The dentist praises me as he plops the two halves of a distorted tooth onto a sterile tray. I wish he’d give me one of those little gold rings from the kiddie jar on his window sill. Except in real 18 karat, so I can sell it to pay for this. I go home, as instructed, to lie down for several hours, and do nothing – including eating and drinking – until the anaesthetic wears off. Otherwise I’ll get dry hole, which is very painful and hard to treat. I follow instructions, and as I am at my lowest, lying on the sofa, my mobile buzzes. The bank. My modest loan request has been declined. I try not to clench my jaw. I have a new phobia. Bank managers.