Thursday 31 January 2008

"Open Wide"

It never appealed to me, dentistry. Terrible job to do, looking into someone's mouth and scraping away the remains of their teeth as the smell of what they ate last wafts over your face. Ick.

And no, the dentist's chair never appealed to me either. It's a nice chair and all, a chaise longue, which, if circumstances were different, I'd happily fall asleep in, but no, this chaise has an irritant half-table thing with suspicious instruments attached.

I've always had that thing about the chair. Ever since I had to have some 3 extractions (crowded teeth, that wasn't the last of it) a few years ago, I've always kinda disliked the chair. Maybe it's something about holding my mouth open for long periods of time while someone (thankfully not a stranger, both the dentist's I've gone to are family friends) probes and pokes around my teeth with pointy objects.
And what I never want to hear from my dentist after she peers in my mouth : Baap-rey!
Shit. I resign myself to long hours of getting to know the chaise .

Filling #1. The probing begins. Scrape-scrape with my least favourite pointy thing.Observes a molar nearly out of sight, tch-thc. Suspicious object approaches mouth.
At this point I decide to put headphones in and lose myself in the music. Or at least TRY to relax.
Suspicious object enters mouth, touches tooth and starts horrendous drilling sound that all but drowns out the music. Not a pretty sound. Not a pretty feeling.I try to lose track of time as music and drilling fills my ears.
Over? good. I feel around with my tongue....Gaaaaaaaaah!!! Huge hole in my tooth!!

Proceed. She shoves cylindrical cotton things in my mouth, under my tongue, probes around with two mirrors and a suction thing and then goes on to fill in the hole she's just created.

Finally, it is all over. We then take a look at the casts she's made of my teeth. (NEVER wanna go thorugh that again. total suffocation.) I look glumly at the casts, pushing at the misshapen tooth alignment with my fingers, assessing what must go where....
Braces will come on in march. And stay for at least a year. Before that, I'll need two more fillings and then the obligatory four extractions.

Yup, I'm gonna know every inch of thatchaise

10 comments:

Mihir Pathare said...

Awww... I can totally sympathise. I've had bad teeth for as long as I can remember. Somehow, despite all my calcium suppliments and stuff, I keep chipping my teeth all the time. I'm headed towards my 1st ever root canal in a few months, if all things go as they are now... :/

akshay said...

Actually dentistry isn't so bad with a long-term anaesthetic dose, something I haven't tried yet (even though my teeth only recently being on the verge of a root canal, rescued by the mercy of the good Lord, who, like me, probably, does not like dentistry too).

I really hate when someone just pokes around random machinery into my mouth... really, it's time I told you dude, doc dent, it's NOT fun. Of course, I'd love to reciprocate onto him his kindness (or lack thereof) any day, I'm just looking for a good chance.

But, seriously though, dentistry is necessary. You already knew that didn't you... but still, it needs retelling in this time of dental/oral turmoil. Like most other things in life, which are a pain in the ass/neck/tummy/etc, this must be conquered too.

Espèra said...

Ooh yeah.
I have to do a blog post about that.
The first ever time I go to the dentist, let's say it wasn't all that great, but I came out knowing that one of my teachers has horrible teeth.

phish said...

dentist? ulp!
havent been to one in decades. i am born with a very good set of dentures and i hope to keep it that way.

one of the cutest random things that you wrote about.

Mystique said...

2 taurius: root canal???? I so pity you....

2 akshay: no, dentistry is bad even with anasthetic.

2 espera: haha

2 phish: thank you!!

Mihir Pathare said...

Yeah well.. that's my life. I'll live with it. Probably gonna ask for a general anesthesia. :/

VenkyMarg said...

My dads a dentist.. its a very weird thing all the xrays and stuf.. very weird stuf..i like the chair only after the aneashtesia and then you feel no pain how much they drill into your mouth you dont feel anything..

Princess Consuela Banana Hammock said...

oh.... nice ... completely took me back to my days spend at the dentist... that i did .. spend a lot of saturday evenings there .... been through the whole filling process two times ,cold metallic objects whirring into the hole .. damn those chocolates ... and the braces part too ....two years of eating chewing gum which had to stick to the wires ....after many many saturdys spent reading cosmo in my dentists office and occasionally chatting with the cute blue brace guy and of course those minutes i spent wondering which color of binding wire should i get for the braces .... i am finally free ..

Mystique said...

2 taurius: It'll still hurt after you wake up.

2 venky: ah. so you know what it's like.

2 butterfly: aaaaaaaaargh

Anurag said...

It's amazing how you come so close to reality with this post.But am not to sure how a dentist is gonna react to this ;)