Gone to the Dentist
Quick Recap:
On Jan 1st, while in Brazil, I had this very stupid accident where I bit a salt stone, and hurt my tooth. It became very loose and painful. My cousin, a dentist there, checked it out two days later, and put a “cast” (don’t know the right name for it), so It wouldn’t be disturbed while it healed. She told me to see a japanese dentist after one month to see if the tooth was still in place, and continue my treatment here.
For those who do not know, however, medical system in japan is a bit of a scare among foreigners. I have heard terrible stories from friends who are studying medicine here, specially from those who are doing internships in dentistry. Blogs didn’t help much as well, so I turned to friends I had in Tokyo to find a good dentist.
It turns out that 4 or 5 people in the brazilian student’s mailing list I’m part of suggested this same doctor, who had worked in JICA sometime ago, as a good one (if anyone wants, I can give you the address). Since I got many indications to the same doctor, I paid him a visit.
The first visit was okay, if kind of weird. The assitant would make me many questions, then she would relay the answers of those questions to the doctor. After, the doctor would make the same questions to me directly again. But besides that, it seemed an okay, reasonable visit. He took an xray of my hurt tooth, agreed with the conclusions of my cousin, and said that he would leave the cast for another month, and then test wether the tooth was still alive or not.
However, in the second visit was a little weird. Before anything else, before even looking into my mouth, he said that the “cast” was going to stay on for five more months…. uhhh, okay, I guess. Then he had his assistant clean my teeth, and came to test if the hurt tooth was still okay. He gave me some shocks, (like he said he would), and then was pleased to say that the tooth was still okay, but would take another 5 months to heal completely. Well, maybe he took a long look at the x-ray, I don’t know.
Then things got a little bit wierder. He said I had deep holes in my back teeth, which had not developed into cavities just yet, but should be filled just for safety. He showed me one of those holes - it was indeed big, so I said - “sure”. Then came the REALLY weird thing: he pointed to the two teeth before the last ones and said - “I’m going to do like these teeth. See, they were filled”
“I never had any feelings”
“No, they were filled - see? They make a different sound when I scratch them in the middle.”
“Er, I’m pretty sure that I don’t remember filling my teeth.”
“Maybe you filled them when you were a child and don’t remember?”
No, I don’t, I really don’t - and I lost my confidence in him a little after this - and losing the confidence in the doctor is
not really good now, is it? I’m kinda in doubt If I should let him fill my holes or not afterall - maybe I should get myself
a second opinion?
March 11th, 2007 at 10:28 am
hmmmm… eu lembro vagamente de teres tido uma carie, muiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitos anos atras, mas se quiseres, posso perguntar para vitoria.
March 15th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
I too have heard that the dentists here try to make the problem bigger by finding faults in other teeth and wanting to fill them. Some of my friends have managed by saying that they will come on a later date for those teeth and not showing up again.