root re boring?

I might have explained the process of tooth decay and it’s treatment at different stages, thousands of times. I feel like the priest reciting the stories following the Satyanarayana pooja. People hear it out of courtesy, not really bothering to listen attentively. I, like the priest, do my duty. Many a times I feel that I should record my talk and switch it on, to save myself the bother. I was at it once again. The man in front of me was a vehicle mechanic. He had noticed the big, black hole in his grinder long back. It did not bother him much. It only forced him to use a pin to dig out the food particles lodged in, and he carried a pin in his shirt collar for convenience. Better, easier and much cheaper than going to a dentist. Sometimes, even after the dentist finishes meddling with the tooth, the food continues to find it’s way into inaccessible areas. Having been forced to seek a dentist, now, he used his pin to point out the cavity to me so that I do not get into some other tooth. Last night, he said, that when he dug the food stuff out of his tooth, there was a shooting pain. It had persisted and prevented him from sleeping. He was unable to brush his teeth in the morning but had tried to drink a cup of hot tea, which had made matters worse. Half a dozen painkillers which he had swallowed and few drops of petrol which he had put into his tooth did not help. He was about to try more exotic remedies when one of his friends –a sensible one- had advised seeing a dentist. The same friend recommended this clinic, saying, that there are few or no patients and there is no need to wait.

There was no need for me to do a detailed investigation. The fellow had to have his tooth extracted, or undergo the root canal treatment, RCT for short. Simply put, RCT means cleaning out the cavity and drilling deeper to reach the roots and search out the narrow hole (we call it root canal) which runs through them. Having found them we need to widen them so that we can go inside- with instruments I mean- and clear all the infected tissues that are present in the canal which are the cause of pain. Then we need to disinfect the canal and pack the whole length of about an inch of the root canal with filling material. Only then, the large cavity which has been the highway for infection, is sealed completely. Usually I am able to put this information across and I try my best to make people understand what procedure they are undergoing. With our mechanic friend I was trying it with out much success. He believed that it was the large hole that was the cause of pain, and if it is packed or “filled” it will cease to trouble him. He had stuffed it with cotton and felt that the pain was little less. Going one more step ahead, if the hole is thoroughly plugged, it should all together stop bothering him.

I wrote a picture of the tooth and explained (very slowly again) that the tooth as we see in the mouth is only one third of it. The remaining two thirds are inside the gums, as more or less conical projections and we call them roots. At the centre of the roots is the narrow canal which contains blood and nerves. The cavity which we see on the tooth is the opening for the infection to reach these roots canals. The nerves in the canals cause pain and it is this part of the tooth that needs to be treated etc etc.

He heard me patiently once again but evidently did not understand what I had said. He felt that the RCT business is very complicated. Surely there has to be some easy way. He had heard his friends say that their teeth were just filled in a jiffy with some cement and they were fine. He asked me whether it would help if we pack the cavity with lead or silver which were stronger instead of cement? Or even cover the whole tooth with a cap? He obviously had more information on dentistry than I had expected but I was not in a frame of mind to appreciate his knowledge and I was about to start tearing my hair.

However, I thought of giving one final try. I went into an area familiar to him. I told him to think of the tooth as a car. An old car. The body was dented and rusted. The engine was much worse but not visible. I asked him whether the car is going to be fine and run, if the body is repaired and repainted? He laughed at me and said that there is no point in doing anything to the body unless the engine is repaired first. I told him to think of the visible part of the tooth as the body of the car and the roots with its contents as the engine. I told him that the engine of the tooth is bad and unless you attend to it, whatever you do to the body won’t help.

In spite of his pain he smiled. He said that he understood what I was trying to convey and asked me how much does this root re boring cost?( As I believe, “engine re boring” is a way to make a defunct engine run a little longer.) Even though he said “root re boring” for RCT, making use of a term with which he was familiar, I knew that I had got the message across, effectively.