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How many of your patients suffer from sensitive teeth? How many of your patients have sensitive teeth? Yes, they are two different questions.

Having a condition is completely separate to it impacting on your life. I’m sure every dentist has had a patient insist they do not have sensitive teeth only to jump out of the chair during the examination. It’s not that these patients are lying to you, they often just don’t consider themselves to be suffering, and often will not realise they have the condition. That may seem hard to believe but actually the explanation is about as simple as it can be. As the great philosopher Jeremy Bentham said, “Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure.” As human beings we naturally avoid doing things that cause us pain. For the more low-brow it is like that old Tommy Cooper joke: “I went to the doctor the other day and I said it hurts when I do this. He said well don’t do that then.”