Prevention is better than cure. My painful journey with my decayed tooth

I was longingly looking online at the electric toothbrush available at a 30% discount, promising to give a plaque free dentitition and a perfect sparkling smile, with the same intensity as a bald man would look at a hair dryer or a curler. The only thing missing in the whole picture was my tooth—you do not realise the importance of something in life, such as health, wealth, teeth, hair, or love, until they abandon you; therefore, nurture them with care—then they will be yours for life—both virtues and vices. The tooth is one of the most essential parts of our body because it actually lets us enjoy the different tastes of life. Food is the essence of survival, and unless it is presented in the right form at the table and in the right form by the teeth to the palate, the whole beauty of a cuisine is lost. And not to mention the power of that beatific smile—with a perfect set of teeth—it can launch or destroy a thousand ships. And we have taken the maintenance of the teeth for granted since childhood; persistent cajoling in childhood to brush your teeth before going to bed in a proper way falls on deaf ears. The main aim of brushing remains just to get rid of the bad taste in the mouth and to kick start the day; hardly a minute is spent on the act, and the mouth is rinsed away in a hurry -- an irritable early morning chore. No preventive measures are taken until they become a source of pain and go beyond retrieval. Dentist visits are ignored, as are any efforts to develop the proper way of brushing the teeth, until the sheen is lost and a black plaque signals the beginning of the end of the teeth. But life carries on until the decay and the caries reach the root or the pulp, or until it hurts you, as it happens in life. Bad habits are very easy to build up but very hard to get rid of, and they accumulate until they finally erupt into a painful quagmire from which it is difficult to turn around. The black plaque is ignored, the brushing habits remain the same, the caried teeth careen in glee as the embedded bacteria has a gala time, and no preventive or curative measures are taken till it begins nibbling on the pulp and the pain begins. A toothache is one of the most gnawing and unbearable pains—shooting at times, gnawing at others—and a dull background of uneasiness always remains like a nagging partner. Then the travails at the dentist begin, and now you realise the actual value of a dentist and a dentist chair. Like in medicine, you have different specialisations, so do the dentists, who specialise in different aspects of dental care. You get an array of options, from the masculine Alfa maxillofacial surgeons who are adept at wiring your facial fractures to the cosmetic prosthodontists trying to give you a perfect smile. You have a cafeteria full of choices. The dentist chair is one of the most comfortable reclining ones, and if you have been properly anaesthetized, you soon pass into a deep slumber while the dentist is sweating around with his array of instruments and his assistant is busy suctioning off the debris so that you do not gag. My journey in the dental world was through RCT, or root canal treatment, and dental extraction. Root canal treatment -- the dentist desperately tries to save your caries teeth by making it painless by removing the pulp and the nerves painstakingly root by root in multiple weekly sittings till your teeth become totally painless -- and then they apply a crowning glory -- well, I went so late that despite repeated painstaking multiple efforts by the dentist, the teeth were beyond redemption and refused to become painless, and I landed up with extraction -- injected with local anesthesia, you are blissfully unaware of the pain -- until about half an hour later when the effect starts weaning off and the pain comes back in full force -- And by dinner time, you are fully loaded with painkillers, have swollen gums, and are feeling hungry on a liquid diet. A week of liquid to semisolid food to let the wound heal—no forceful swishing lest you dislodge the clot—and the hollow space slowly closes down, leaving behind toothless gum. If it is the molars, you forget to chew, and if it is the premolars, you forget to smile. It takes two months for the local area to heal so that a perfect denture can be given as you pass on to the prosthodentist, who takes a soft impression of your tooth, and the cast is sent to the dental lab for making a perfect denture. And lo and behold, your smile is back, as is the joy of mastication. and once your dentition is back and your smile and taste of food return, we are again back to square one for getting through the active pain and oral surgery that patient 1 has gone through. another plaque Another painful carry It brings you back to your dentist chair, and you go along and complete the cycle again. C:\Users\home\Downloads\P_20190627_184318.jpg