Ever since young, I've experienced a spade of dental problems that left me traumatic and fearful of all dentists. If you are a dentist and you're reading this, I'm truly sorry but it's nothing personal. If it helps, you may blame my primary school dentist for creating this horrible perception and impression.
Of all the horrible experiences with several dentists, there was incident that left the deepest scar. Back then, I had a problem where my baby teeth dropped out, and the replacing adult tooth grew in the middle of the hard palette; perpendicular to my two upper front teeth.
Weird huh! Because of that incident, the dentist injected four local anesthetic injections surrounding that tooth, and YANKED it out with all her force. Now for a primary school kid witnessing four long injections going into her gums as well as some silver surgical tool that looks somewhat like a very strong plier, it certainly left a deep "memory".
So I thought since I've extracted that weird adult tooth, I should have one less adult tooth. To my surprise, another adult tooth started growing in place of the baby teeth that fell out. I was relieved and glad. Little did I know that down the road, I'll face a similar dental problem.
Now that I am an adult, one of my adult teeth has grown out of place. To add to the issue, it has been confirmed that two of my lower teeth are still BABY teeth, which are strong baby teeth that can last me 30 to 40 years. However when the day comes and that two baby teeth drops out, THERE WILL BE NO ADULT TEETH GROWING OUT. In other words, I will be "bo gei" (Hokkien for toothless)!
Worried and upset about my crooked and weird teeth condition, I decided pay a visit to the Orthodontist at National Dental Centre when I was in Primary 6, t0 see what he has to say. To cut the long story short, I did the X Ray (that is how I knew about the baby teeth), the mould for braces, shifted house, and changed my mind. Ten years later in the current reality, I was envious of my friends who had nice straight teeth as a result of braces and since I've started working, I thought to myself, why don't I start putting braces since I can pay for it myself?
So yesterday, I headed down to National Dental Centre for consultation and was advised of the charges for orthodontic treatment. Though it seems to be a little cheaper than private clinic, I was pretty turned off by their long waiting time (despite choosing the non subsidized rates of starting treatment straight away) and the lack of flexibility in appointments. After all, their appointments can only be scheduled either morning or afternoon on weekdays and if I accept the treatment, I can foresee myself using up all my leaves within the next quarter.
Hence, I have decided to opt for Private Orthodontic treatment which allows treatment at night or weekends, and is located near my house. For now, I've booked a consultation appointment with a dental clinic in Pasir Ris - Whitesands for this Sunday at 5:00PM.
Wish me luck. And oh I better start eating all my favorite food now.
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