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..!