My Dental History

The one thing that I like the most about having born into the family that I am part of is its excellent Medical History (Touchwood!). In spite of being a large family (my father has six brothers and two sisters) that is spread all over South India (Hyderabad, Bangalore, Palakkad and Kochi with the second generation extending to places like White Plains, USA on one hand to Chennai, India on the other), all the family members have had a healthy life till date and traveling across cities, states or countries have not really affected any of them. Which brings me to the other topic that I wanted to stress- Hospitalophobia :) I have always been afraid of hospitals. The sight of blood makes me see red, the smell of dettol sends me into a dizzy and the very thought of entering a hospital makes me feel giddy. As a kid and even at a time when nothing much of a kid remained in me, my once in a bluemoon trip to hospital for reasons like fever etc used to frighten me a lot. The less said about my phobia towards injections the better. Till the time I was a teenager, I used to cry at the sight of the injection needle :( Fortunately for me, I have not really had to be hospitalized till now and I sincerely hope and pray that I don't have to see such a day in future either. In the middle of all this came a day when I partly broke my front tooth, thanks to a good old hit against the wall. A small portion of my front tooth broke out and this was very evident whenever I opened my mouth to smile. I was in Class 9 then and noticing my tooth, my parents decided it is time for them to take me to a dentist. As luck would have it, I chanced upon a poem called This is going to hurt just a little bit by Ogden Nash where the poet was describing the pains of visiting a dentist. This poem was part of my curriculum in school and one reading of the same, I decided that there is no way I will visit a dentist. I could successfully abstain myself from visiting a dentist for 8 more years and then, one fine afternoon, I discovered that I was having a cavity in one of my tooth. I dragged on as much as I could and when finally the tooth started paining, I had no other go but to visit a dentist. So, there I was at a dental clinic near Jalahalli, in Bangalore (I was working at Bangalore then). The dentist was a very kind, unassuming and nice person, but the moment I saw the torture chair, I started getting jittery. The dentist and my aunt who accompanied me to the dentist tried their best to put me at ease and somehow managed to get a few jobs done in my mouth. Filling a couple of cavities, putting in a bridge for my pre molars and putting a cap on the front tooth- these were the various activities that the dentist performed on my teeth and after almost a dozen sittings, I was free. Or so I thought. 4 years later I realized that the crown on my front tooth had turned black and that I had developed a cavity as big as a cave in another of my pre molars. There was no way I could go back to the dentist in Bangalore since I had moved back to Kochi (Tripunithura, to be precise). And thus I started visiting Dr. Rajkrishnan's dental clinic. I had heard a lot about Dr. Rajkrishnan and his clinic. He was supposed to be the last word in dentistry and had a lot of movie stars and other prominent personalities as his patients. He had patients from all over the world and his dental clinic was really state- of- the art. But when I actually visited his clinic, I found out that things were even better that what I had heard. I was welcomed by the staff at the clinic with smiling faces, my appointments were fixed according to my convenience, I was reminded of all my pre fixed appointments once again over Phone calls or SMS and not to mention, the extreme professionalism with which the whole process was handled. Not that all these came for free. I had to pay a whooping 13K for a crown on my front tooth, but the cost definitely was justifiable vis-a-vis the benefits. On my first appointment, I was introduced to the very professional and very friendly Dr. Roshni who surveyed my mouth and teeth and told me what all needs to be done. I met Dr. Rajkrishnan soon and he also gave me his opinion on what needs to be the course of the treatment. And thus started my series of visits to the clinic to get the crown inserted to my front tooth. The older crown was taken out, the tooth was cleaned, an impression was taken, a temporary crown was put and after 5 sittings, the new permanent crown was inserted on Saturday, September 1. The result was truly mind blowing and even I could not make out which was my original tooth and which was the crowned one. Such was the precision with which the crown was prepared and inserted. I have heard somewhere that once Smile increases one's face value. In the current world where anything and everything is taken at face value, Dr. Raj and his team have contributed significantly to increasing the value of my smile and thereby, my face. This might sound like an advertisement to the readers, but this is the honest feedback of an extremely satisified customer. I would definitely not look forward to a long lasting relationship with Dr. Raj's dental clinic for obvious reasons (my phobia towards hospitals, the difficulty of sitting on the torture chair with one's mouth wide open etc), but I would advise all of you to turn to Dr. Raj next time you have any problems with your tooth. Smilingly yours,