A word to the wise: avoid, if possible, all dental procedures throughout your life regardless of age, whether you're an adolescent, a teenager, an adult, or a senior citizen.  Regardless, avoid the dentist.  Now that may be hard medicine to swallow because we are inundated with messages like "be sure to see your dentist regularly," "be sure to see your dentist twice a year."  That message assumes you're either already sick or have dental carries or that decay happens at a rapid pace of every 6 months.  We're asked to see the dentist as if we're unhealthy.  The message to "see your dentist" assumes that you're ill, assumes you need care.  You don't.  You might be deficient in nutrients, and medical care is not a substitute for vitamin deficiency.  So many medical and dental procedures are unnecessary.  I repeat, unnecessary.  There are few positions in the realm of human existence where you make yourself more exposed than when you are sitting on your back, mouth agape, with some excavating pick exploring and creating "occlusions" on your precious teeth so that the greedy dentist can make that payment on his La Jolla condo. 

Like most people, like most business folks, dentists don't have your long-term care in mind.  If they did, they'd be out of business.  They would be your friend maybe and not your dentist. But once a man becomes a dentist, he enters into an unspoken, unsigned contract with the dental industry.  The list of organizations is extensive. 

National State Organizations

State Dental Organizations

So as your dentist is picking through your ivories in your mouth and exploring for openings that he can charge you for just know that he is no longer serving the God of service but instead he's serving the god of Mammon.  In other words, he sold his soul.  

As to those messages I mentioned above, know that marketing mostly appeals to your fears or your greed.  "Be sure to see your dentist regularly appeals to your fears.  It makes you anxious about the health of your teeth, while you put 110% trust in a stranger with an array of sharp instruments hopefully with the skill and knowledge to use them effectively.