An oral dilemma...

The only real fear I had before setting out on this journey was that one day I might get sick and have to go to a hospital or dentist while travelling through Asia. If I happened to get ill while in Europe I didn't care. I felt comfortable with the European health care system. Asia, on the other hand has a poor reputation for cleanliness, quality and sterile clinics. I've seen hospitals in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka and have said "gee I hope I don't get sick". Well my fear came true in Sri Lanka. I needed a dentist. A perfectly good wisdom tooth decided it had enough and wanted to get out. Firstly I visited a government hospital which had a dental clinic attached. This is common in Sri Lanka. When I saw it from the outside I considered turning around.

Once inside my anxiety grew because of the quantity of patients and the run down appearance. Then I walked into the dentist clinic and the first thing I saw was a dentist holding a huge pair of pliers and pulling on a large tooth in an older woman's mouth. He looked at me and said "what's wrong, how can I help?" and yanked on the tooth which exploded like a shot gun sending fragments flying out of her mouth. I froze, looked at him, looked around, looked at the half tooth protruding out of her bleeding gum and said, "umm". I decided to let him look in my mouth. Just a look. He told me I needed an X-ray but they were out of films and didn't know when they would have more. He gave me antibiotics and I quickly left hoping that the pills would work. They didn't.

I wanted a second opinion before I made any decision so I went to a local rural clinic. Why did I bother! It just increased my anxiety level. This place was only standing up because of the weeds around the building. By this stage I was really just trying to find somewhere that resembled a dental clinic. Or at least looked sterile. I was told by this dentist that an X-ray was needed and I should go see a specialist in Matara, the town I was at first.

So back in Matara, I went to a private hospital's X-ray department. This place was as bad as the others. The "Radiologist" had his room set up on a corner with a jewellery cleaner conducting business out the front. My X-ray took all of five minutes. I held the film in my mouth with a finger, he pressed the button, sat back in his chair, closed his eyes and resumed his nap. His offsider then told me to pay $4.50 and wait a minute outside.

With a film of my tooth, showing nothing to an untrained eye, I went to see the specialist at a third hospital. "What's that?" He asked of my film. "That shows me nothing" he explained. He pushed on the tooth and said "it's mobile". He then bashed on the tooth with the end of an instrument, I gave a yelp and he confidently told me "it has to come out". "Hold on, hold on, surely not. Why are you so sure?" I replied. The last thing I wanted was to have a tooth extraction in any of these 'clinics' I'd visited. We spoke about alternatives and the potential outcome, he gave me more drugs and I went home praying it would heal. It didn't! So about a week after it first flared up I bit the bullet (great pun) and headed back to the specialist for another chat with my fingers crossed. His private clinic resembled a garage. A sliding metal door, opening up to a waiting room and a door to the surgery. To say I was feeling nervous is an understatement.

He called me in and I looked around the room like a hawk. I wasn't impressed with what I saw at all. Dirt and broken concrete render on the floor, old orange (once clear) tubes sticking out of what I imagined were dental apparatus, a grotty sink and two assistant that looked 15 years old. The problem with this was that it was probably still the best I'd seen. He reconfirmed that the tooth needed pulling, I procrastinate some more and finally gave in. He gave me the good old needle and asked me to wait outside while he attended to four other patients. Upon my return to the chair, he put a couple of instruments in my mouth and yanked it out. Stuffed some gauze in the hole and asked for $50 before sending me on my way with this comforting statement...."You are worried? I know it looks bad but it's sterile". I filled my body with antibiotics, iodine mouth wash and painkillers for the next three days and on the fourth day, when I realised that I was healing well and the pain had gone, I finally took what felt like my first breath in ages. I had a tooth pulled while traveling in Asia......and survived.