Have you ever had Estelle Warren, look into your eyes and cause you unbearable pain, and say – Lift up your left hand, whenever you feel pain!

The day started off bad with the swelling as a result of an incessant toothache moving up my face when I woke up today! I decided – that’s it! I have had enough crazy days as a result of this. Today, we decide what’s the fate of the tooth! Given up2 me, I would have just yanked the damned tooth outta its socket and be done with it. Of course, I can only say such things coz i would never dare harm myself thataway!

So, I decided to visit the dentist – finally. I have been escaping this for the past 10 months for the following reasons

• I didn’t get my medical insurance in hand until a month ago
• Dental care is expensive in Germany. Yeah a tooth extraction might leave you 100-500 quid short =S!! Yeah, temme about it!!

However, the pain was not only unbearable, however I also learned that tooth infection manifests itself as various other infections in the body [courtesy: A – a Duke Bio med grad student, who loves experimenting with monkeys – no I am not kidding :|]

So, my throat infection was also getting worse. Fighting the pain, I shaved and took a shower and got ready to realize that the University Dental Clinic [Uni of Erlangen] would probably be the cheapest! So, biked till the clinic – My bus pass also expired – and got into the place.

I had to run around a bit to find the actual clinic – ZankKlinik 1 – as it was called! Now, the receptionist was smiling and she spoke broken English. I managed to give my medical papers to her and told her – PAIN!! Excruciating pain – and she smiled and said – one moment please – you can fill these [2-3 forms which were filled in hurried frenzy] and wait at the waiting room.

Thus began a wait of an hour – during which I managed to go over Inside – a girl’s mag filled with super skinny models and the products they were advertising – and slept! After about 40 mins, however, I was beginning to get frustrated – really really frustrated that 2 other people, who came after me were taken in!

I finally decided that I am gonna give the oh-so-friendly receptionist a piece of my mind, when this Estelle Warren like doc came through the door and said – You – come here…

Ok, for a moment, probably I forgot all the pain. Then another female came to me and started talking in English – asking me for symptoms etc. I made small talk with her – asking how much time it took to become a dentist in Germany – and she told me that she had friends in Bombay, who she’s considering visiting in about 2-3 years time. I said cool =)!!

The the EW like doc came and asked me – what happa? I gave her the details… and then she asked me to open my mouth and started banging around my teeth – asking does this pain? Does this pain? You would that would be a DUMB q to ask – however, none of the teeth actually pained on being hit.

Then she said – ok, let’s take an X-ray!

So, began the sojourn @ the X-ray unit, where the bubbly English speaking doc was there after a brief wait tho =|! Then she made me remove my pendant [I still dunno why] and then took an X-Ray! When the actual rays were being passed, all of them went outta the room. That was kinda scary. The x-ray images were directly passed on to the consulting doc below [yeah I write software for these people… it better have worked :P]!

After this, I went back down and EW doc asked me to get in and lie down on the first chair. What followed was an extremely professional setup of causing an excruciating amount of pain in my tooth, that probably ran all the way to my @$$!!!

Everybody was smiling – and so was I. I was informed that another RCT – Root Canal Therapy – has to be done on that tooth as the previous time, the nerve endings weren’t removed properly. Btw, this is the 2nd time that it’s happening when the RCT was done bad. I should go back n kick my previous dentist’s @$$!!

I immediately asked how long is this gonna take? She said – 3 sittings. Today one, tomorrow another and another one for checking! I was mentally calculating how much this is gonna cost me considering that my medical insurance covers ONLY 50% of dental treatment! I am gonna be robbed =(! Anyhoo, i decided that this is the price I have to pay for not checking my teeth before heading towards Germany! =|!

What followed initially was a rubber sorta thingy placed on to my tooth, which hurt – so that saliva doesn’t bother the doc working on the tooth. Then, the usual drilling, grinding and then came the disclaimer – if u feel pain at any point, please lift ur left hand. Then she did something – God knows what, those green eyes looking into mine, and gave me such a pain, which’s still lasting btw. And I am already on one Ibuprofen =(!

Apparently, today the tooth has to be left open so that “matter” comes out =S!! And tomorrow they are gonna inject some medicine into the tooth, which will prevent any further infection as a result of this “treatment”!!

Beware of dentists – they can hurt you BAD!

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