**********************************************************************************************************
Father had a wonderful set of teeth. And a flashy smile, although he rarely switched it on after taking up his Headmastership. And he never visited a dentist. All his teeth were intact in perfect condition when he died at 80.
The less said about my teeth the better. I had a fairly decent set of teeth before I started chain-smoking. And now I am practically toothless.
My son got his grandpa's teeth. A perfect sparkling double row. And a smile that reminds me of Madhuri Dixit. Half his grades at IIT KGP and three-fourths of his sales, PRs, and hikes then on are due to his smiles.
But he started visiting his dentist at Miyapur here soon after he reached his 30s. His dentist had already bestowed upon him a couple of fillings, an extraction, and a zirconia crown a year and half ago. And he is back again this morning into his dentist's chamber for a couple of fillings and a couple of zirconia crowns.
His dentist is a middle-aged chap, very friendly and efficient, and assisted by a nice girl he trained privately. Generally he doesn't allow the attendant to sit in his OT which has no extra chair other than the dentist's. The idea is that attendants are talkative, intrusive, and prone to fainting.
But he makes an exception to me since I am an old war veteran immune to watching dental procedures. And I can at times stay quiet. As soon as we two enter, he asks his assistant to pull in a plastic chair for me and close the door.
This morning he was busy for more than an hour, cleaning and filling and taking molds of the two teeth to be crowned. All through the drill I was dozing silently. Finally there came a ten-minute lull during which the dentist had to keep the resin pressed with his hands into the mouth of the patient. Then he started chatting me up:
"Do you still keep blogging everyday?"
"More or less...that is my hobby"
And it was my turn to keep up the chitchat:
"Doctor, my father never went to a dentist all through his 80 years of life. I went to my dentist at KGP when I was 50. But my son, whose teeth are nice-looking, has been to you since his early 30s. And he doesn't smoke or drink. What could be the reason?"
"Oh, it is the food we eat nowadays. It is this processed food that destroys our teeth"
"My dentist at KGP was very efficient and kind. But he had the poorest oral hygiene. He chew tobacco and smoked all the time. My MD uncle was a chain-smoker. Why is it that doctors don't practice what they preach?"
"Oh, it is due to the tensions in their professions. We are always stressed and so most of us fall prey to bad habits"
"My mother also never went to a dentist. But she had this habit of grinding her teeth continually in her sleep. And all her upper teeth ground their lower colleagues and vice versa. None of her teeth ever fell down...they ground themselves till nothing was left to grind"
"Oh, we have a name for that medical condition...Buxism"
"What causes it?"
"It is psychological, you know...grinding their teeth relieves them from inbuilt anger and frustration. There is a remedy for it now. We have a plastic implant like a set of false teeth. The patient is asked to fix it in her mouth before going to bed. She would start grinding it in blind fury but of course it refuses to be ground away. The sleeper however is satisfied that she has vented out all her suppressed anger and wakes up refreshed and removes the plastic thing till she goes to bed again when she inserts it back in her mouth. And after a few years she stops her grinding since it looks useless. And her teeth are all intact and her anger would have vanished"
Buxism?
Reminds me of the one-horse chaise of the Deacon:
http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2010/09/autocrats-masterpiece.html
***********************************************************************************************************
The less said about my teeth the better. I had a fairly decent set of teeth before I started chain-smoking. And now I am practically toothless.
My son got his grandpa's teeth. A perfect sparkling double row. And a smile that reminds me of Madhuri Dixit. Half his grades at IIT KGP and three-fourths of his sales, PRs, and hikes then on are due to his smiles.
But he started visiting his dentist at Miyapur here soon after he reached his 30s. His dentist had already bestowed upon him a couple of fillings, an extraction, and a zirconia crown a year and half ago. And he is back again this morning into his dentist's chamber for a couple of fillings and a couple of zirconia crowns.
His dentist is a middle-aged chap, very friendly and efficient, and assisted by a nice girl he trained privately. Generally he doesn't allow the attendant to sit in his OT which has no extra chair other than the dentist's. The idea is that attendants are talkative, intrusive, and prone to fainting.
But he makes an exception to me since I am an old war veteran immune to watching dental procedures. And I can at times stay quiet. As soon as we two enter, he asks his assistant to pull in a plastic chair for me and close the door.
This morning he was busy for more than an hour, cleaning and filling and taking molds of the two teeth to be crowned. All through the drill I was dozing silently. Finally there came a ten-minute lull during which the dentist had to keep the resin pressed with his hands into the mouth of the patient. Then he started chatting me up:
"Do you still keep blogging everyday?"
"More or less...that is my hobby"
And it was my turn to keep up the chitchat:
"Doctor, my father never went to a dentist all through his 80 years of life. I went to my dentist at KGP when I was 50. But my son, whose teeth are nice-looking, has been to you since his early 30s. And he doesn't smoke or drink. What could be the reason?"
"Oh, it is the food we eat nowadays. It is this processed food that destroys our teeth"
"My dentist at KGP was very efficient and kind. But he had the poorest oral hygiene. He chew tobacco and smoked all the time. My MD uncle was a chain-smoker. Why is it that doctors don't practice what they preach?"
"Oh, it is due to the tensions in their professions. We are always stressed and so most of us fall prey to bad habits"
"My mother also never went to a dentist. But she had this habit of grinding her teeth continually in her sleep. And all her upper teeth ground their lower colleagues and vice versa. None of her teeth ever fell down...they ground themselves till nothing was left to grind"
"Oh, we have a name for that medical condition...Buxism"
"What causes it?"
"It is psychological, you know...grinding their teeth relieves them from inbuilt anger and frustration. There is a remedy for it now. We have a plastic implant like a set of false teeth. The patient is asked to fix it in her mouth before going to bed. She would start grinding it in blind fury but of course it refuses to be ground away. The sleeper however is satisfied that she has vented out all her suppressed anger and wakes up refreshed and removes the plastic thing till she goes to bed again when she inserts it back in her mouth. And after a few years she stops her grinding since it looks useless. And her teeth are all intact and her anger would have vanished"
Buxism?
Reminds me of the one-horse chaise of the Deacon:
http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2010/09/autocrats-masterpiece.html
***********************************************************************************************************
No comments:
Post a Comment