Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Do not try this in India

The dentist I mean.
I have made it a goal of mine while I am here to experience as much of India as I can. That means the good and the bad, the happy and the sad and leading by example The dentist.

I made an appointment which was changed several times by the dentist herself to find a time more convenient, to whom?

I should have taken this as a sign but kept at it until finally on Monday I went.
Having cleaned and flossed my teeth using the same thought process as ,cleaning the house before the cleaning lady comes, I arrived ready for a "routine cleaning" my appointment was scheduled for 10:00 and when I reached they informed me it was changed to 11:00 which is more convenient again for whom?

I busied myself with thoughts of dental decay and what was I going to do if the actually wanted to drill and fill? I was taken back to the days of the late sixties when my great Uncle was the family dentist. His office was a small two room affair above the grocery store and hardware store, they did not call them strip malls back then. Anyway I remember going into the barely light office with this huge chair and a light coming from the ceiling shinning in my eyes whilst I stared into the eyes of a madman behind a mask saying open wide this will not hurt, Kay hold em down for me will you? Where was Saravana I had to get out of there!

Mr. Murphy its your turn said the diminutive dentist helper as I followed her into the office. It was clean and tidy and in typical dentist fashion she tried to sell me on teeth whitening, silver cavity removal along with white silicon replacement, no thanks just the " routine cleaning please"

I sat down in a fairly space age chair all electronically operated. The "dental hygienist" pressed a couple of buttons and filled a small glass with water and meekly asked, have you had your teeth cleaned by a professional before, why of course, shall we get started? OK.

Open wide this will not hurt, where have I heard that before I was thinking when all of a sudden my mouth had this bitter taste and my tongue went instantly numb. Yut yas yat for I mumbled? To block the pain from the procedure. YELP!

The next thing I knew she fired up the electronic monster and attached to it was the demonic tiny sander and she proceeded to attempt and perhaps succeed in removing all the plaque along with all the enamel from my teeth. I gathered the courage to open my eyes and to my horror I saw pieces of solid matter rising through the watery mist and felt certain my teeth were now nubs.
I finally had to raise my hand and say Yop! Yut yare you yoing?Why cleaning your teeth, sir.
Yenough please I begged just brush them . So she took this paste that tasted exactly like the small red pills we used in my youth to let dissolve in your mouth to see how effective your brushing had been, and tasted just as awful!
She then started the demonic machine again and proceeded to polish my teeth which I will have to admit was the least painless part of the process. Then out of now where she stated your done.

WHAT no floss ? What kind of a dental office is this. No lecture on dental hygiene threats of no teeth without flossing, no tooth fairy what is this place?

I was shown a movie on "proper brushing procedure" which after about 10 minutes of fiddling with the laptop the dentist finally got to run, and let me tell it is physically impossible for me at least to bend my arm the way the video showed.
It is now three days later, I still have a head ache and my teeth still hurt, but only when I floss!
I can not recommend the "routine cleaning" proceedure.