A severe toothache can be a pain in
the ass.
I woke up with start as my long
time companion in food digging crime started having issues with me and gave
small indications to move out with his pricking pain regularly. I am talking about my right lower Molar tooth
at the end. It has been a few weeks
since he has been pestering me with his annoying pinching and coming in my way
of my favorite activity – eating. As I
kept ignoring him, now he seems to interrupt me in the middle of my sleep to
make me realize his importance and insists on spending quality time with him
and take him seriously. So here I am
armed with a bunch of cloves, clove oil and cotton balls to combat my once
friend turned foe. I try to roll a couple of cloves and squeeze the juice to
keep him quiet. He seems to be adamant
and I go for the cotton ball dipped in clove oil and place it in the cavity he
has created thereby burning right side of my tongue. This seems to have worked. The strong flavor of clove oil has made him
quiet for a while. I feel a better and try to catch a few winks. He is there again in about an hour with his
persistent pricking. I get up again, try
the clove, clove oil and also pop up a combiflam. He decides to give up for the night and I
lose a few hours of sleep. I make up the
most of the remaining night to spend a hectic day at office.
This
has been on and off for the last few days.
For strange reason, this nocturnal activity for the last few days
reminded of my sister trying to deliver my niece in the hospital. My niece took 12 hours to come out in this
world. She seems to be confused on
whether she should come now or wait for a little longer inside. In the process, my sister was neither able to
sit nor stand nor lie down with the persistent pain. We sympathized with her for a few hours but
later got bored, then fed up more than her.
Please note we did feel guilty.
But everybody was helpless.
Likewise, I have been sleepless for the few hours trying to sleep/lie
down/sit. Nothing seemed to work. Even tried meditating at 1 a.m. at
night. It did give a good hour of
relief. But my sweet-turned-sour molar
tooth was having a upper hand with me.
So
enough is enough. I decided it’s time to
visit the dentist for forcibly evicting the uncompromising tenant in my 32
residential quarters (though a couple of quarters are already empty !!!). I wanted to visit my favorite dentist but he
has a long list of appointments and I didn’t have the guts to bear this torture
for another day. So knocked at the
dentist’s clinic just next to my building.
Had visited him once for a teeth cleaning session. He has a couple of
rooms for treatment and a few clients waiting outside. Feels better to know you are not the only one
suffering a toothache. My turn comes. I lie down at the chair lowered almost
horizontally. It’s such a comfortable position after a hard day’s work. Would
have gone off to sleep had the doctor not entered in next few minutes. He checked my tooth and started mentioning
about trying to save my tooth and get a root canal done. I interrupted him and told him to just
extract this fellow and throw him out. I
am done with him. He wrote me some antibiotics
and pain killer and gave me a appointment couple of days later for check up
before extracting the tooth.
Now,
let me tell you about my experiences with my tooth problems and there have been
quite a few. In the process, have learnt
a few things about dental problems. I have done three root canals and a couple
of silver fillings and lost a upper molar tooth. Actually, the molar tooth left
on his own. He had got fed up of my
indifferent attitude towards him and decided to shrug himself out of me and voluntarily
move out. I didn’t try to stop him
either. How could I ? I never took good
care of him. I was more than happy to
release him. On root canals, with my
three experiences I have learnt a lesson. If your tooth has been severely
infected so much as even a touch brings out the pain, the root canal process –
to be specific removing the root thread is going to be very very painful process. If the tooth is less infected, the process is
bearable. Still the drilling, grinding and whole lot of abuse the dentist does
with your tooth can be feel like living in a mine field during the
session. You never know when he is going
to touch on a raw nerve and send shivers down your body and tears in your eyes.
It was these experiences that made me decide to get the tooth extracted rather than
go for root canal.
I went
for my scheduled appointment and the dentist checked and fixed next day’s
appointment for the demolition and extraction programme. Next day, I was
eagerly awaiting the dentist’s appointment.
Almost as if all my problems in the world was going to vanish with the
removal of that tooth. There was a suppressed fear hiding inside. But I choose to ignore it for the moment.
I
reached home in the evening, got fresh and
went to my Demolition God for the farewell ritual of my beloved tooth. The
Assistant brought a pad with a form attached and a pen to fill up. Now this was becoming scarier. Why would they want me to fill up a form for
tooth extraction. Was that life
threatening ? For a moment, felt like
calling up my home and telling my folks, to come look for me if I don’t reach
home in next couple of hours. I filled up the form, signed it and gave it back
to her with a expression and attitude appropriate for a 40 year old guy.
Few
minutes later, she came back and led me to the demolition venue. The same dental
chair with almost horizontal position.
However, this time it didn’t seem comfortable. They left me alone for
few minutes as if they wanted to make sure I am really ready for this and won’t
run away mid way. The nurse came in with
a assistant announcing she would be giving a anesthesia which will make my
right side of my tongue and the area around my molar tooth numb for few
hours. I wanted to suggest her to make
my whole body and mind numb and do whatever they wanted to do with my tooth and
wake me up when they have done with it. But
they meant business and I kept my mouth shut.
But she told me open up in the next moment and brought a injection kind
of instrument near my mouth and told me to open my mouth wide. One look at the needle and I decided to close
my eyes and desperately think of something pleasant. Even Himesh Reshamaiya’s
face and music would have sounded divine to me at that moment. She started pricking and filling some liquid
near the demolition area as if sanitizing the area for the upcoming bloodbath
to be enacted at the venue. I kept hinting at the pain by jerking my body. Good the people at the dentist understand
sign language. She was done in few
minutes. Told me to keep opening and
shutting my mouth for five minutes. The area
would get numb and I won’t feel anything around that area. They left the ground
prepared for the Demolition God to begin the combat. Lying alone on the
reclined chair with my right side of mouth going in numb mode, I had to get rid
of my negative thoughts arising inside me.
Thanks to Whatsapp, took out my phone and started reading the day’s
unread messages (there was quite a lot of them) at the reclined position. Just
as I was getting comfortable with myself, the Demolition God alongwith his team
ambushed into the room and I went into the same panicky mode. As they went about arranging their
ammunitions for the demolition, I frantically summoned all the 1024 Hindu Gods
and all the Gods of other religions in whatever forms and shapes for a urgent
prayer meeting. The Demolition God
without so much as a hello, jumped in my mouth with his ammunitions and started
pricking the boundary of my tenant to be
evicted. It was fine for new few moments till he decided to insert the needle
or whatever instrument he had with him from one side of the tooth to the other
side and started pulling it up with force.
The pain came back with fury. I
growled at the pain. Why growl ? Well, I could’nt scream. He had his pointed
instruments inside my mouth. Didn’t want
any more damage to my mouth. He stopped for a while. Asked me whether the pain
is bearable. I said it was bearable at
present. I was hoping he will soothe me
by saying something pleasant. Instead,
he told me he will have to put pressure to extract the tooth and it’s going to pain further. Am I comfortable ? I
just stared back at him and I realized – Dentists are the only businessmen who
can get away by scaring their clients to death. He must have felt like God with
me at his mercy. I guess he read my mind
by my expression and told me to come after a week when the infection subsides
and then decide on the extraction. I
came back home. Don’t know whether I
felt happy to have avoided the extraction or sad to have come back tagging the
problem along with me.
I have
a feeling now. I would rather go for a
root canal than extraction. Have done
root canal earlier. A known evil is
better than a unknown evil. Atleast I
know what to expect. So, here I am waiting for my scheduled dental visit next
weekend………..
