Of dental distresses....

Dentistry, in my opinion, must be the second oldest profession in the world.  Ever since man started to eat starchy cooked food, dentists have flourished and prospered. To me, the sight of the dentist’s chair, the whirring sound of the drill, the tongs and pincers are stuff what nightmares are made of, and to reason— I’ve had more than my fair share of the dentist’s ‘hot’ seat.

But, after spending big bucks on numerous sessions with various dentists, I’ve reached the conclusion that dentistry is the biggest con job in this world, ok, maybe, after politics. 

It all started quite a few years back with a small discoloration that I spotted in one of my molars. I ignored it till it gave away to form a small hole. This story is about how that tiny hole ballooned up into a cosmic blackhole that sucks everything in its proximity, and… there is no exit.

So, once the hole started to trouble me, I visited a nearby dentist, who filled it up. But, soon after on a not-so-fine day, at dinner, I bit into a hard substance, which I realized was actually the filling that had slipped out of the hole.

I had to run back to the dentist, who had one look at my tooth and declared solemnly that the decay had worsened and the hole in the tooth was now too big to be filled. He gave me two options : one to have a root canal done – a new dental procedure then, which involved removing the gooey interiors of the tooth and replacing them with some dummy stuff; or two, have the tooth extracted. Hoping to avoid more visits to the dentist, I opted for the latter.

That it seems was a strategic mistake I made, according to another dentist. In the absence of one critical molar, he proclaimed, the ones on the other side had gotten overused and eroded. So he suggested I go for a bridge which would take the place of the extracted tooth. Here, the catch was that the bridge would rest on two adjacent teeth which would be carved to support it. I agreed unwillingly, but hoped that it would all end there. 

In hindsight, that was another grave misjudgement.  What happened was the teeth that the bridge was resting on started to decay (because of the food particles caught under it), which did not come to light till the teeth had decayed beyond redemption.    The third dentist I visited was visibly upset over the poor judgement of the previous dentists.  In his opinion, the only way I could save the support teeth now was to go in for root canal (RC) treatment immediately.

With that started my innumerable sittings that go with the treatment, which left me poorer and my dentist richer.

Now, with the RC done, I hoped (and prayed) my dental distresses would be over and I could resume normal life. 

But no, that was not to be. Barely a few weeks after I got my RCs done, I started to have strange sensations in those teeth. But when I rushed back to the dentist, I found to my dismay that he had shifted – to a plusher clinic in a posher area, where he was assured of a supply of clientele with fatter wallets. That left me little choice but to visit my fourth, and a more modest dentist closer home.

He took one look at my teeth and passed the verdict that the RC had been badly done and needed to be redone! At that moment, I felt something close to the proverbial (?!) ‘kolaveri’ (a word that means ‘murderous rage’ in Tamil)!  I was left with not much choice but to put more bad money after bad money, and agreed to have the procedure redone. I hoped without much hope that my troubles would end there.

Of course, the reader would by now have guessed where this is headed. A few months elapsed after the second RC procedure. Meanwhile, I continued to support my dentist’s living and life style by having a few more holes filled and some wisdom (?!) teeth extracted.

Recently, my third wisdom tooth started to give me a lot of pain forcing another dental visit. After poring over the X-rays he had asked for, he regretfully declared that the ‘RC’ed teeth had lived their life and now, they had to go.

Seeing my crestfallen face, he brightened up and assured me that there was still hope for me, and it was called ‘implants’.  I just had to sign a cheque for a few thousands and she would order some dental implants which would be sewn up in the place of my eroded dental bone. And then there was simply the matter of fitting an upper structure in place of the tooth and capping it and then, we would be done!  

Exercising enormous restraint over my ready-to-combust emotions, I asked him what the life of the implants would be. My question immediately put him on backfoot;  he said that it ‘depended’ on various things like my body’s receptiveness to the implants, its tendency for infection, not to forget my oral hygiene habits, etc.  Assuring him that I would get back after discussing the matter with my family, I scooted, never turning back once... 

That day, I learnt my valuable lesson, which is best summarized in one of my favourite jokes – ‘You should see the doctor when you are sick, because the doctor must live; you should also buy the prescribed medicines from the chemist because the chemist must live; but, DO NOT consume those medicines because you must live too!’

Amen!