my visit to the dentist(s)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Molar (tooth)

Molars are the rearmost and most complicated kind of tooth in most mammals. in many mammals they grind food; hence the Latin name mola, “millstone”.

Human molars

Adult humans have twelve molars, in four groups of three at the back of the mouth. the third (rearmost) molar in each group is called a wisdom tooth. it is the last tooth to appear, breaking through the surface of the gum at about the age of twenty, although this varies by ethnicity.

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i was on mc last friday. the husband & i made a visit to klinik pergigian bangsar in jalan travers for some cheap dental services. hah!

we got there early at about 8am. & i was pretty impressed with the counter service (surprisingly friendly) & restrooms (surprisingly clean) but once i sat myself into the reclining dental chair, the dentist just whizzed through her examination of my mouth. literally whizzed. the experience lasted all of one minute… or two… tops. & i was like “eh? done already ah??”. she was in such a hurry that i was afraid to ask her any questions except for “err, doc… howsabout my wisdom tooth, can we extract it?” to which her answer was “no cannot, it’s too small, wait till it grows summore.”

& of course being the medical school drop-out that i am, i knew that in cases of gigi pandai like mine, its never as straight-forward as: wait till it grows then we can extract. i mean, all the other private expensive clinics i’ve been to always advise me that it depends on the position of your wisdom tooth. some can never grow bcos its being blocked by something else. some grow but excruciatingly so.

so in a state of tak-puas-hati-ness, i told the husband that i want to go to a private clinic lah. no matter lah if it will cost an arm & a leg or not. i couldn’t take the perpetual throbbing in my head & the constant soreness in my gums & mouth.

so we had breakfast first (just in case the private clinic does remove the irritating tooth & I couldn’t eat) & then headed to a recommended dentist in jengjengjeng… jinjang-land. the dentist was very nice, very gentle & was very good with explaining things (as the recommendor promised me). she even told me i matched her orange furniture bcos i was wearing an orange top. i’m not too sure if this was a compliment or complisult (compliment + insult) but she said it with a smile & that made it ok. anyhow, i had to open my mouth, hold a piece of something in place inside my mouth (so inelegant ok) & we did an x-ray & found that the gigi, although coming down straight & not senget-senget, was indeed being blocked by the neighboring molar. & so, if i had taken the government clinic dentist’s diagnosis, die lah me. bcos it wouldn’t have come out & i would have to live with the head-throbbing & mouth sores. even if the tooth could come out without impediments, i would still choose to remove it asap.

the cost of this minor surgery to remove the tooth is (at most) rm500. sigh. therefore, the moral of the story is, we have to pay extra for good service. of course if you really think about it, we also “pay” for sub-standard service bcos in my opinion, i pay taxes so that there is a government dental clinic to provide such services to us. i could rant about the injustice of it all but maybe i’ll save it for another day hor.

before you say that i can get it done cheaper in other private clinics (& yes it may be so), let me just say this: i have done my homework. i have sourced for price quotations from dentists in puchong, pj, ttdi & jinjang & all quoted the same thing: between rm350 to rm500 depending on the complexity of the procedure. note that i chose dental clinics in different vicinities just to eliminate any concerns on cartel-like price fixing.

come this thursday when i have my date with the scalpel, i’ll be (at most) rm500 poorer. lucky i can claim from my company.