I think people in India visit dentists less frequently compared to say people in the USA. But in my experience the situation is similar. I have been charged for 3 x-rays (on different occasions, when I visited dentists for different reasons) because one of my wisdom teeth is a little misaligned and every time they told me it's ok now but to be safer side it'd be better to extract it now because eventually it will... shall we schedule an appointment for extraction, etc.

On the other hand, once they showed me how all my teeth look- high resolution digital images- uneven surfaces, edges, gums, etc. and looking at those zoomed images on screen was not pretty. Imagine looking at the internal organs, etc. Thank God, the machinery works.

I have no pain. So we'll see how long it lasts.

Last time I went, at 21, everything at the dental office felt like a scam, as if they were trying to find problems to fix. And I was a student and couldn't really afford any treatment anyway at the time. I lost trust in dentists after that and never went again.

Think about how you feel about dentists, and how everyone else talks and acts about teeth and dentists. Now swap teeth with fingers, and dentist with finger doctor.

"Shame on you, you haven't had your annual finger checkup? Doesn't matter if they feel fine, finger doctors can see issues before they arise and give you painful expensive treatments to prevent issues you didn't have and didn't know you were going to have."

FWIW, I read a study a long long time ago that talked about some people have a rare genetic mutation which means their saliva doesn't produce the acid that leads to cavities. I'm in my mid 30s, haven't been to the dentist in nearly a decade, never had a cavity or toothache or any mouth discomfort (apart from after I'd been to the dentist).

Saliva doesn't produce the acid that causes cavities, bacteria that feed on the food in your mouth do.

Look, go see a dentist or don't; but suggesting that dental care is unnecessary is reckless.

Saliva doesn't produce acid directly, but it combines with other things to contribute to the environment that produces the acid. I couldn't find the exact study, but a fair few studies founds links between genes, saliva, bacteria and cavity rates.

Look, I didn't suggest dental care is unnecessary. Quite the opposite: brush your teeth folks, and if you're lucky like many other people, you won't have to go to the dentist and won't suffer debilitating consequences. Treat it like a finger: look after it, clean it, don't hurt it, but you don't need to waste time and money on a yearly checkup of it (unless you've got a good reason to).

I had tons of dentist interventions meanwhile my brother has had 1 in his whole life.