Memoir: Wisdom Tooth Extraction
Its funny what awakened the memories of this two
month pending post: it was watching “toothless” of How to train your dragon,
which reminded me that I am wisdom toothless. I might have ignored to write
this old a post, but sometimes such information on blogs can be useful when
doctors are not; like was in my case. Two eventful months have transpired since
the “surgery”, I still retain the essence of the agonizingly long experience. I
will hence narrate the gist and chuck the finer details.
Having realized my mouth can provide little
room for the wisdom tooth to grow, I went to the University Health Centre (UHC)
dentist to get a not-so-rare or complicated procedure done: Wisdom tooth
extraction. I should confess I was very apprehensive, and took Priyanka along to
stay through the procedure. So, the doctor and his assistant were all ready to operate
in my mouth, without caring to inform me what they did at every stage. I
believe keeping the patient educated makes a huge difference in their
confidence and particularly their anxiety levels. The procedure started with a couple
of painful local anesthetic injections in the inside of cheeks, after which
followed numbness throughout the left side of my face. Keeping my eyes closed,
all that I could feel and hear was a few screeching instruments digging into my
teeth, and occasional vacuum sucking out the fluid. Priyanka said my body
tremors were akin to that of a seizure patient, although clutching her hands gave a
sense of security.
Few observations noted around: the assistant
wearing gloves attended a phone call, checked the patients’ record book, opened
a cupboard, and same gloved hands went inside my mouth. Used dirty gloves lay
around in the room adjacent to the surgery room. The gel that was applied to my empty socket
was kept in the same tray as where my infected extracted tooth was. Hard to
imagine this in Singapore right? Incidentally, my friend Aicha went to the same
clinic and observing the hygiene around, confirmed my statements and she vowed
she’d never go there again.
I was sent back home with not many instructions
or counseling done. I’d like to mention some of them, which might have made my
recovery faster and less painful. One needs to take the first dose of painkillers
before the anesthetic effect wanes off, even if its painful, stuff some food
inside and have the medicines. Apply cold ice packs which might avert severe
inflammation, and eat cold things. The days were insanely painful, I had
painkillers almost every four hours which meant: 6 antibiotics 7 painkillers a
day. My liver would have turned into a pharmacy garbage. Meanwhile, my
flatmates Mrinal, Satty and Priyanka were very helpful in making my
lunches/dinner and taking care. I had ridiculously inflamed pregnant cheeks, its
an embarrassing picture, but I’d still like to share it to emphasize the
magnitude of it.
I had a splitting headache throughout,
apparently common with tooth extractions with the nerves being connected to the
head. The headache would aggravate after I get up in the morning, due to the
blood pooling in that region while lying. A week later, I got the sutures
removed and the doctor said the inflammation would go down soon. Aicha thought there
was something wrong, it shouldn’t take so long and said I should go see the doc
again. 2 days later at UHC, another doc: he said I’d an infection in the gum
and he’d do a procedure to clean it. Yeah right, wonder if the infection came
from their unhygienic glove practices. Again the painful injections, and yet achingly
bad gum procedure. Kabhie tooth, kabhie gum..
With my qualifying exam round the corner, I
went bonkers with these uncalled aches. I was hardly able to focus on studying
and making slides. At this point, I couldn’t help thinking about Ogden Nash’s
lines: "Some problems are physical, some are mental; but the one that is both,
is Dental." Everyday I dreaded the prospect of confronting the dentist again; I now
realized why the dentist visits is labeled as “vicious circle”. I didn’t recover
before my exam, I somehow managed to survive swallowing the hepatotoxic
analgesic pills. The very next day after exam, I went to the NUH who insisted I
go back to the same doctor who extracted my tooth. It was hard but I succeeded
in convincing them how the UHC doctors weren’t helping my case, it had been 3
weeks and the swelling and pain didn’t seem to leave me.
Mrinal accompanied me, and we entered the walk-in queue, and had to wait
for 2-3 hrs before I could see the doctor. The doctor seemed very convincing to
me, he carefully examined the inside and outside of the mouth and got an X ray
done. He said I have most likely developed a post operative hematoma (blood
clot) in the area, which might take a few months to heal. No medications prescribed,
the only thing that could help was applying heat enhancing the blood
circulation. I followed it religiously three times a day, and the swelling went
down considerably, although if you observe closely, you would notice my
left side is still a bit bulgy. But it took 5 whole weeks for me to get rid of the
headaches, I would crave for a single day without a headache. It was annoying
to find such an irresponsible and unaccountable dentist facility on campus. In all, I wasted 5 crucial weeks and S$900
in one month of this dental ordeal, probably it deserved just half the amount
with the right doctors and instructions/counseling.
Dentists terrify me, as post traumatic stress
disorder, I suffer from dental hygiene paranoia. I strongly recommend to spread
a word around and to be aware of the lousy unacceptable UHC dentist practices:
you might just regret it..!
