FISTULA ?
yes and no. yes; fistula. but No; not in ano.
i will come back to it later on - a bit of suspense, if you dont mind.
THE PAST
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From sikkim - himalayas - the lower reaches of |
for quite some time now, i never had any problems with my teeth; that is in spite of my not brushing for years - i just used to use a tooth pick.
the last time i had a problem was in 1984 i think. severe tooth ache invloving one of my molars. i was in a high altitude area - around 10,000 feet. i had the problem before we started from the base but i could not have avoided the trip. if an artillery shell hits you or misfires there is nothing much any one, leave alone me, can do about it. but the presence of a medic is a must.
and when the guns fire it is the adjt who is the busiest man around. the poor kannadiga i am sure, must have got hardly any sleep all night - we were sharing the same tent and i was groaning in pain all through.
after the days schedule was over (it invariably starts early in the morning) i made a trip down to the hospital. my aim was to come back the same day. but i ended up in a hospital bed, as a patient for once. the fact was that it was one of the upper molars and i had developed severe maxillary sinusitis. i just had my brief case with me and for the rest of the days in hospital i was using the patient's uniform.
our then dental surgeon was a very talkative person. he had a foreign posting prior to coming to this place and one of his many boastings was that before returning from his foreign assignment he had ensured that he had everything including his daughters dowry - the daughter was just a toddler then. i thought he was all just gas, but he proved to be an excellent clinician and took good care of me.
i had an altogether different experience with another gentleman from the same set up. i always used to have nagging dental problems all through. i had to get my tooth, another of the molars, extracted and this gentleman put me on the chair and gave me a local. then he went out to chat with someone and by the time he came back the anaesthesia had waned. he poked me again and went out to chat and the same story repeated ditto. while giving me the third injection he was commenting that i must be drinking like a fish. i dont know what is the connection with drinks and the duration of a local anaesthetic - he probably knows better.
i took it sportingly though i could have created real hell for him. but there was one person who was terribly embarrassed - the JCO/ORA who was assisting this dental surgeon. there was nothing the poor chap could do about it but avoid eye contact with me. and ultimately after the third injection the gentleman pulled out the tooth.
i had a worse experience in my late teens. the local dentist ( i dont think he was a qualified person) drilled into my gum. it was agonizing pain and i gave him a push and the drill flew off. "annakk tholanju povumayirunnallo" the fellow was telling me - you could have got a hole in your palate! well after that i had decided - no more drilling; never ever! extract the tooth and get rid of it once and for all.
now coming back to this fine dental surgeon of the yonder days in the fauj: i soon got well and was discharged. but i would like to add an anecdote over here. i used to send patients for inpatient treatment to this particular MH where i myself got admitted. many a time what happens is that the patients are sent home on sick leave directly from the hospital itself. so some time later i was going through the admission and discharge register of the hospital to find out what happened to some of the patients i had sent there. i came across my name in the register and realised that i am a christian, a roman catholic.
PRESENT
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| From gestapo |
few months back i started getting tooth ache again, after ages. the tooth affected this time is one of the premolars adjacent to the tooth that gave me the sinusitis while in HAA. i used to get severe nagging pain and was on self medication with clove oil - it does help but the condition was gradually progressing. i had to be extremely careful not to chew on that side for if i did i was going to get severe pain for the next half hour or so. later i could feel the swollen gum and the swelling soon became obvious even from the out side and my indrawn cheek for once had filled out - though on the left side only!
i had developed what the dental surgeons call a root abscess. the abscess has to be drained; the tooth had become a nuisance and has to be extracted. None of these i could do on my own and there was no other way out. in my present situation my approaching a dental surgeon for treatment is going to be terribly risky - it will NOT be the dental surgeon but the indian gestapo ( it is a plain clothes police man who calls himself cbi "officer" (motto - "you show me the man; we will find the crime") and his stooges from other spy net works like the so called "special" branch of the local police) who will be deciding the treatment. and the learned dental surgeon will be obediently executing the gestapo's orders. so i left it alone and decided to put up with the suffering.
a couple of weeks later i felt the pus oozing out from the gum - the abscess had burst into the space between the gum and the cheek and that was a relief. but the exudation was continuing intermittently. i realised that the cavity in my tooth must be communicating with the space between my gum and cheek and i was wondering whether there is some thing called a dental fistula analogous to the notorious fistula-in-ano.
it was once i finished drafting this document that i remembered that i still have my stedman with me and looked it up. and yes; it was very much there under fistula dental. but the details are given under the synonym fistula gingivalis: communicating between the cavity in the tooth and the space between the gum and the cheek.
it is almost a month since the abscess had burst. at present the situation is that there is hardly any exudate though i can still feel the mouth of the fistula on the gum with my tongue. the visible swelling outside is gone but the gum there is still tender, as could be made out when i press my cheek with my fingers. the tooth is no more painful and i can even chew with it - the fellow is dead. so ultimately my body has found a way out and adjusted itself to the situation! thank goodness.
just imagine, me developing a dental fistula in the twenty first century! thank you gestapo; i expect to meet you in person in the very near future and in public. and meet we must, one way or the other.
viceman090120
updated 090120* * *
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