There is nothing quite like flying, that feeling of freedom and power, detached from the oafish demands of gravity. Nothing that is, except scuba diving. Diving is like flying in slow motion, suspended in time and space. Especially for someone like me, who grew up watching Lloyd Bridges make the sport ultimately romantic and adventurous on every episode of Sea Hunt, diving delivers a dreamy sense of disconnect wedded to the sharp thrill of entering a forbidden, mysterious realm.

There are a few caveats to consider before taking the plunge. Diving is not for the claustrophobic, for whom being thrust underwater in a wetsuit and buoyancy compensator can feel like being smothered in jello. And it’s not for the dentally challenged. As an Academy of General Dentistry spokesperson, I help shape news briefs and occasionally answer queries from reporters when those stories are floated out into the roiling media sea. In a springtime article on dental diving syndrome a few years ago, I enumerated the oral and maxillofacial complications that can arise from scuba diving, including jaw joint and associated muscle pain, gum soreness and lacerations, and tooth squeeze.

The scoop for consumers was this: TMJ-related disturbances can be triggered by clenching too hard on a mouthpiece, as divers drag a bulky regulator through the water with their teeth. Similarly, ill-fitting rubber mouthpieces can irritate oral soft tissues. Divers should avoid wearing partials and dentures, which could block airways.

Barodontalgia, dental pain related to ambient pressure change, may be experienced by air travelers, skydivers, and scuba divers. The same compression and expansion of air in lungs can also occur in teeth, from any condition that allows air into teeth, including caries, defective margins on restorations, periodontal abscesses, maxillary sinus congestion, pulpal lesions and endodontic therapy. Teeth that have been opened for endodontic treatment and temporarily sealed have been known to explode from the expansion of trapped air on surfacing.

I attributed the surge of interest we got on that piece about divers and dentistry to the unusual ground it covered. Who thinks about underwater dentistry besides dentists? Then I read Hugh Gallagher’s novel Teeth. In Teeth, a young writer named Neil has a dream that he is diving. But his buoyant freedom is cut short by unfinished business: the dental problems—a metaphor for Neil’s general avoidance of the responsibilities of adulthood—he has been putting off:

"Sinking farther down in the sea," Neil relates, "my heart thundered in my chest as a black vice slowly crushed into my teeth, threatening to splinter my entire soul...The pressure pounded my tooth, and I felt as if I were being swallowed by my own agonized mouth, down into a primeval sea of dental despair."

Then Neil sees divers approaching. "I tried to call out but my voice was killed in the black liquid, and I watched, helplessly silent as the divers moved closer...They were a crack team, I could tell, their bodies muscular and fit, hard and lean, their cool, capable faces illuminated in sharp clarity behind the silvered glass of their face masks. And as they began to pass by, I realized they were no ordinary divers, but dentists. Scuba Dentists!"

Explorers and mirrors hanging from equipment belts, hand pieces in sidearm holsters, Neil’s scuba dentists rescue people’s mouths anywhere, period. Nice symbolism, huh? That’s us dentists, as the more imaginative of our patients see us, confronting the exotic, conquering the unseen. "I got my scuba in Aruba," purrs a woman in a popular credit card commercial. Diving often conjures visions of escape to tropical beaches. Dentists, as Neil’s dream relates, are the practical souls who help the world’s dreamy divers come back to earth.

From Inscriptions, Journal of the Arizona Dental Association, 15(11):5, May 2001.  Dr. Eric Curtis is author of Hand to Mouth: Essays on the Art of Dentistry, Quintessence, 2002.

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