Teething tales

Teeth- an important asset of a human being’s body. (Don’t mind the scientific language…being a biology student I can’t help it!) The first thing you notice when a person smiles is his/her teeth- white or yellow, straight or crooked, small or big.

I was (and still am) a proud owner of my 32 strong dentine range, as I could (can) eat a sugarcane using only my teeth and no other tools, crack a nut open or chew open a seal on new apparel. Phew! These are only ‘some’ examples of the many uses of my strong teeth. I never imagined that my teeth could give any problems…I was so proud of them.

It all started with a cavity in one of my molar tooth. I thought it was a small thing and ignored it till it started paining. After some days, I thought that its high time I visit a dentist now. The next day and went to a dentist near my house to take an opinion. She examined my teeth and told me there are 5 cavities in every quartet! That makes a total of 20 damn cavities. I was shocked! I was so confident that I had only one cavity that I asked her 5 times, “Are you sure?” and she replied, “Unfortunately, yes. The one main cavity you had was active and it has spread all over. Ignorance is the main cause behind it.” I was shattered- one reason being ill dental health and second being the treatment cost Rs18, 000!

I got a second shock when the dentist started drilling my teeth. The machine looked like a drilling machine and the doc drilled my teeth leaving them look like potholes on roads! She coolly said, “This cavity is in its third stage and we will need to do a root canal.” I was mentally prepared for anything by now. All I said was “ok”. The last I visited a dentist was when I was in school, so I didn’t know the details off stuff like filling, root canal, etc. I asked my friends and bro about the root canal surgery and their experiences scared me. The next day I went to the dentist and to my surprise the root canal thing didn’t hurt at all. The only thing that irritated me was to keep my mouth open for 3 long hours. I was a good patient and the treatment- root canal, filling of 20 cavities was done in 5 days’ time.

The dentist was also very friendly and she explained me each and every step of the root canal, why she was doing it…which I found quite interesting. She showed me the haalat of my teeth after each step as she knew what a curious soul I am! Now, I started becoming more conscious of my teeth- brush them twice, use a mouthwash after meals and stuff. Capping my teeth is still a problem as they’re not getting a cap fitting my tooth. My tooth is drifting, it seems. I know it is as impatient as me ;).

When that’s done…I will get my 32 back…as of now, they are 31 and a half (including the remains on my root canal wala tooth)

Now that I have got my 32 back…I am happy and I am still proud of my dentine range. I can still eat sugarcane, nuts, open labels…nothing has changed, except the fact that my bank balance saw a depression of 20K!