Mark's Blog

Dental Tourism

If you look at the x-ray on the right you'll see at the bottom right hand side a wonky tooth growing squarely against its neighbors. This had been due to come out for years before I came here. My Irish dentist made an appointment with an expensive clinic in Ranelagh for me before I left, which I had cancelled. It would have been under general anasthetic, the works. Neither the VHI or the clinic were able to give me a straight answer as to whether I was covered for this operation or not, so I seized this opportunity in Delhi to get it done here at a fraction of the Irish price and with plenty of time to recover properly.

Sanjay, my friend from working in Tilonia (Barefoot College) recommended his dentist, the ex-army Dr. Lnt Colonel Chopra. After an inital visits, x-rays and filing replacement with the Colonel, I reckoned he was the man to sort it out and booked the Wisdom tooth extraction procedure with him. He was to bring a consultant in to do it.

The procedure went smoothly once the consultant escaped the traffic jams, arriving 45 minutes late. The whole thing was over in three quarters of an hour. Most of it was taken up with local anasthesia and stitches, the actual extraction must have taken just five minutes. I didn't feel a thing and the surgeon made the whole thing look easy. I couldn't have been in better hands. This guy was the president of the Maxillosurgeon association of India and had a string of directorships and fellowships to his name. The tooth was out before I knew it and is now wrapped in tissue in my pocket. I wonder how my dentist could have thought a general anasthetic was ever necessary for this operation.

I was blessed when Sanjay's wife, Anita, found me a room in a local guesthouse run by the redoubtable Asha. Sanjay had been kind enough to put me up for a few days after I travelled to Delhi with him after our work at the Barefoot College (more about that later). I stayed at Asha's guesthouse for a week popping pills and recovering. I had all my needs catered for. Ensuite bathroom, clothes washed and wonderful chicken and fish dinners. All I had to do was sit back and recover. We got busy in the kitchen and made glorious scrambled eggs and Gazpacho. Asha was cool and very attentive to my comfort without being invasive. I learned a lot about Indian life while there and picked up some Hindi. I know that I'll always have a place to stay in Delhi now, and a lift from the airport for the next time I come back. Her daughter Maya was a laugh and Shonu, the MBA student friendly and chatty at dinner times. I'll be back there again before I go for when I get the last filling done.

For five days afterwards, the right side of my face was tender and slightly swollen, as expected. I was on a course of antibiotics, probiotics, painkillers and vitamins for that time. The stiches are out now and it no longer hurts, though I still can't open my mouth fully due to the constriction in the left side of my jaw. This will go in time and it's no biggy really.

I'll be paying a final visit to the Dentist at the end of May for a scale and polish and another filling to repair the tooth which the wisdom tooth had been impacting against for so long. That should complete any dental work that I need done for a very long time. The cost will have come to about 200 euro for everything, including x-rays, blood test and drugs, by then. The whole lot could easily have cost me 1000 euro back home, so it's paid for the cost of my flight to India. It is a great relief to finally get this feckn' wisdom tooth extracted, it's been something I've had to do for years and now it's sucessfully done. What a practical thing to have done here, looking after very temporal things in a place where most people assume you come for your spiritual welfare. ;)

On to Rishikesh and the source of the Ganga....

Posted by Mark at March 26, 2004 03:28 PM