Drills and Machines Guns: An Experience in Indian Dentistry

So I'll bet you're wondering what this title's all about... I'll get to that soon. Let me just start of by saying I really don't like going to the dentist. Oh, all my dentists, orthodontists, endodontists, and maxillofacial surgeons have been fine, but like many Americans, the idea of a drill cutting into bone-like material inches from my brain scares me.

About a month ago, the molar in the back-bottom-left corner of my mouth--which google now tells me is called simply "first molar"--began to hurt like a 19th century British novelist. Abbie said to me, "You should really see a dentist about that". Good husband that I am, I replied, "Sure, that's a good idea". Matt Petit that I am, I tried to wait and see if the pain would go away. Wrong. All this time, not only my "left first molar", but the whole left side of my jaw began to hurt; both nerve and muscle.

Before I go on, I should tell you, this tooth has a checkered past. It all began when I was 17 and had to go to Dr. McCloud's to get three teeth filled. Too much soda--dentists hate that. I would, too. Perhaps as penance, my nerves didn't quite take to the litocaine as they should have, and I could feel just about every drill twist for about 30 minutes. That tooth had the biggest filling.

Three years later, I found my self cheering wildly at the 2006 UF-FSU game (which we won 45-12, by the way). In the middle of a Ball Park hot dog, I felt something hard and a scratch against my tongue. My filling had come out. For another two weeks, I ate, drank, and practiced with various gobs of dental wax lodged in the 3 mm jag in my tooth. A good stop-gap, but by no means permanent. After some time, I went to a dentist in Mooresville, just up the road from Davidson, and had my tooth refilled, and that was OK for another few years.

On the advice of many of my colleagues, Abbie and I visited Acharya Dental; a world-renowned dental care center honeycombed between tiffin stands, packs of goats, and small IT companies. Dr. Acharya herself was apparently once a great beauty, bringing people for halfway across the globe not only for the prices, care, but also her Bollywood looks and manner. That was 10 years ago. Now she has more the air of a head nun or Nurse Ratchet. Cool, efficient, and disapproving.

She tells me what I'd come to fear from neurotic internet searches: I need a root canal. The nerve inside my tooth had become infected (likely from an encroaching filling) and now needed to be extracted. I'm ecstatic at this point, but the actual procedure was still to come.

After wrangling with the dental assistants over several phone calls, I learned that I must come for my procedure in the morning (during adjudicating hours). I could hear the fear in the front desk woman's voice when she said Dr. Acharya insisted I be there as soon as possible. (These front desk ladies, by the way, wear matching saris of different colors for every day of the week). When I arrived the next day in the orange dental chair, I was met by Dr. Emmanuel, a smily endodontist who, I thought, would be better suited in a pediatrician's office than behind a blue-green mask.

I won't get into the details of the procedures, because it involves a lot of needles, spikes, and a little bit of fire, but suffice it to say I learned that "as painful as a root canal" isn't exactly correct and why this clinic was known for its work. The operation(s) went by without a hitch and with very little pain.

As part of her efficiency kick, though, Dr. Acharya had me scheduled for two more appointments--a fitting, then placing of my new crown. On Wednesday, Abbie and I walked into the now-familiar cold sanitation of the clinic and sat down. At the same time, we both noticed something a little out of place. We'd been used to seeing rich expats and Indian muckety-mucks here, but this was different. Next to a man in a snow-white dhoti and with immaculately coifed ear hair stood another, larger man with a submachine gun strapped to his chest. In between asking each other if we should leave, we deduced he was the body guard of this Minister of Ear Follicles, who apparently needed a status symbol with bite. In reality, the gun was probably broken or not loaded. This is India, after all.

Monday is my next and (hopefully) final appointment. I'll get my new ceramic/metal crown and, like that, will be done with a procedure that would cost five times as much in the States, but would probably take less time and have fewer automatic weapons. But who knows?

-Matt