Tryst with Dentists: Why I hate doctors, nurses and medical as a profession

The roots of the Root Canal Treatment (RCT) in my tooth were laid down back in my college days when on a summer afternoon Dr. M.M. Ahluwalia a popular dentist (Retired from Indian Army) near Kalidas Road in Dehradun, diagnosed that small black stain as a probable cavity in my tooth. He later cleaned that stain and filled that small cavity with huge white shiny silver like material which stayed there for almost 2 years. There was no such pain in my tooth but I was just trying to be extra cautious and careful for my future.

When I first visited his dental clinic, I got immediately impressed by Colonel's straightforwardness plus popularity more than his expertise(which I realized later) when I checked and asked him about his fees/charges of filling one cavity. I was in his clinic I couldn't see any doctor/assistant. That room was just a place flooded with patients waiting for their turns. I found a small window with a glass pane/slider on. From this sacred window without any hesitation I asked my question to a Sardar ji (who was the doctor sitting on his chair). From this same window Sardar ji replied in English, Son the fee is only 250 INRs but had you asked this question after entering inside my room I would have charged you 50 rupees just for asking the fees. I was bowled out by his Yorker, clueless with no words in my mouth. I asked that question in “English” to look smarter but was then out of gas, ended that half-duplex conversation and immediately left that crowded waiting room quickly, by replying OK.
 

While I was on my way to my room, which was just a few hundred meters away I was thinking, he appears to be a very expert dentist ,professional, experienced and so busy , many awards he won in Army Medical Services, as per his clinic's hording which lists them. So no one else but he will fix my tooth’s black hole. I was happy that I had finalized a doctor for my tooth, my first ever major decision away from home.

I reported at Colonel's clinic early next morning, I’m always the earliest early bird. Within next 30 minutes he finished the task, the buzzing sound of his dental drill machine almost killed me, my first ever experience and was so irritating. There was no pain in tooth but keeping my jaws so wide open for 20 minutes was not good, I thought Lt Col. was merciless too. I wondered if he was drilling for an oil well or a coal mine. He finished his job, showed me quickly what he did in that 1sq cm mirror, and said NEXT. I came back to my room with a little feeling about that filling. And some time passed.

Roughly after two and half years, the shiny silver filling came out of my tooth one day, the big cavity was clearly visible, I could sense the edges of cavity and could measure its depth. I was in Noida back then; frightened, I immediately consulted a dentist in Max hospitals. This time it was a lady dentist, with a degree of BDS and MDS. She was polite unlike Colonel, examined my tooth and said; in general your teeth are well in shape, strong and clean except this one with cavity, was surprised. For better picture she used her x-rays and showed me the real picture in her computer screen. The now uncovered pit in my tooth appeared bigger than the shiny filling cover which was covering it till one day back. She added further, the earlier dentist drilled it almost close to the tooth’s side edge/wall which will make it difficult now.

From her assessment I understood that either Colonel digged it unnecessarily too deep or there was a definitely a major problem in my tooth. But I cleared her that my tooth never had any pain or sensitive feeling for hot-cold things, even now. Anyways, she said Root Canal Treatment is the way to go to protect my tooth now. I didn’t know what it was. But she explained me the benefits of this procedure which will save my tooth from further decaying in future. I was worried but can we argue or ask for alternatives to a doctor/dentist in India, still I asked as many questions as I could. While talking I was confused if it was Colonel’s fault who screwed my tooth by unnecessary digging and filling or was being fooled once again now by a smart business woman, who is talking of complete extraction of tooth very soon in case of no RCT. Well I took a very smart decision once again and nodded for RCT.

Within a week’s time, roots of my tooth were removed to end all possible routes of blood supplies and nerves. It was treated, filled with different substances and later given an expensive permanent crown for the rest of its life. Special care was taken in matching the color of this porcelain crown with his future neighbors, which didn’t impress me. I was more worried for its strength and surface instead of color. The clinic presented me a 6500 INR bill. On my way to my room I was feeling happy, promised myself I would take a better care of my teeth, will never eat anything which hurts my teeth. But as they say, those who do not know or forget the history are bound to repeat it. Two years later in Bangalore the crown broke from one of its side while eating in office. I was in same state of mind as I was in two years back, worried and cursing all dentists in the world. And once again I began my search for a good(honest by luck) dentist in Bangalore around IndiraNagar. This new encounter reminded me of one famous Buddhist quote, later.

A patient asked the dentist, if it wasn’t nasty to be all the day with the hands in someone's mouth. The dentist answered "I just think of it as having my hands in their wallet.

In Pictures Making Of A Mahatma

This page contains six photographs or our beloved Rahulji..

 

 

Image courtesy : Internet , thanks to everybody.

                                                                                                                                 

Tryst with Free Gift Vouchers

You got a free gift voucher from someone, which can be a meal coupon of KFC, for BJN group restaurants or it can be a shopping voucher for Coma, Copper's Stop or Adibas, Rebuke etc and now its expiry date is near , you want to encash it asap so you are worried and impatient.

If it’s a pure shopping voucher than it’s no problem, you can visit the respective shop, do some window shopping and then quickly go to the billing area and ask one of them silently if they are accepting. IF they say yes, then its great else you do some more window shopping chill inside their AC facility and go home. You can check in somewhere else in a different store. The more worth the voucher carries the more worried you are but higher chances that you will surely encash it.

Real problem is with gift vouchers of eateries like KFC & BJN or may be Leela group hotels. We used to get BJN group coupons worth 3000RS every year in my previous company. It used to have a six month validity period, during which you can go any BJN group hotel in India. I've used them in Bangalore & Gurgaon both. I always though it’s better to first check with the waiters or billing guys if they are accepting them and be cool. Otherwise if it comes as a surprise once you finish your free meal that coupons are not being accepted, suddenly the taste vanishes away, you hate that label and food and promise to yourself that you will never visit the place or palace again.

You check right away as you enter the restaurant, are they accepting your  vouchers. If the answer is NO, they are not accepting or they accept them only in happy hours OR only on weekdays OR not acceptable in this outlet Sir. You feel disgusted, sidelined. And the difficulty is, you just suddenly cannot leave the place like this, leaving BJN, KFC (Leela palace in some cases) or such places  without eating feels bad, humiliated , compromised and sometimes insulted. By now you had already decided to eat so much in free, your tongue takes over your mind. You entered with your wife or gf and now you are leaving so quickly, shame, what will he/she think ? So why not just sit here for few god damn minutes, order the least priced item may be just a fruit juice or cold drinks and come out of the place. And while I hate sipping that 250RS/glass colored soda water mixed juice I am  thinking, I would have rather bought 4 KG apples than this fugazy thing.

If they say YES, you are relaxed, you feel valued , confident  and worthy in your eyes, who doesn’t like free meals with friends. Then this waiter shows you a place for two to sit right near that big flower pot. He brings the menu and then places your order on the table. While eating you think, why did waiter made you sit at this corner, that too near this big flower pot and so close to gate ? I think the AC is not working. Is the quantity very less than regular order ? A trainee cook/chef must have cooked it . Is he treating us differently than those who are shelling their own dough? What was the waiter talking to that other waiter looking towards us ? Was he telling him that we came because we have free vouchers? Oh do I know this person sitting with his family on this next table ? OMG he too is from my office from the “KingNature” building, damn it looks like everyone from our office is here today. These waiters must be laughing at us. And at billing, you are cursing them in your heart when they don’t return the remaining 176 RS*.

*Terms & Conditions: Not exchangeable for Cash. KFFC/BBJN will be responsible for the humiliation  and insult while encashing these.

FITNESS : Run For A Better Life

This post is about thinking and taking action to lose weight and gaining fitness of your life time. It’s my second on weight loss and a serious one, earlier was a fun remark(written with some humor). I now have enough evidence to prove that there is no shortcut to lose extra body fat, at the same time it is not at all difficult as they show in TV programs, advertisements and in various magazines. The best and perfect way I found is simply by running early morning.

Flashback:

I was a sporty person till some 4 years back, before actually moving to Bangalore; I weighted around 72kgs back then. Blame it on the regular ordering of pizzas and biryani in office and mostly eating outside every day. I gained 8 kgs. My dream of having six pack abs shattered with those ever growing six pack flab around my abs. During photo clicks I was breathing in to hold my extra flabs in, Slowly I stopped tucking shirt into my jeans and then came the era of “L” sized T-shirts, even in office, this added more butter into the fat, I mean into the fire, it affected adversely. The fat around the waist grew even more rapidly under the loose T shirts, my chin up count dropped to 2 from 15(it used to be once, in single stretch). In climbing my 2nd floor stairs I was feeling short of breath , my heart rate would go up and worst of all when someone labeled me "Ram Kapoor" , holy cow. Never do this, never buy anything from TeleChopping networks, like a sauna belt , tablets , powder , morning walker etc. that’s wastage of time and money.

Three months back:

उद्यमेन हि सिध्यन्ति कार्याणि न मनोरथैः ।
न हि सुप्तस्य सिंहस्य प्रविशन्ति मुखे मृगाः ।

Only by taking efforts and hard work any work can be accomplished not by just wishing. Prey (animals) never enters inside a sleeping lion's mouth. The mighty king lion has to hunt for his food, and in his hunt he runs a lot and loses fats, never mind. I took this Sanskrit shloka seriously and decided to run every day. Swimming was another option but you cannot swim every day, Gym has its own risks and time investment. The best and easiest and accessible of all is running on road, jungle, sand, soil, early morning. Initially it could be painful and exhausting but it will be fun when you do it regularly.

Prerequisites And Clear Motives :

Strong will power, to lose your extra body weight: You can live whole life with few or many extra kilos, but remember the law of conservation of happiness the total amount of happiness is constant. You need to decide you want to live longer with less tasty food or a shorter life up to 40 with all yummy buttery delicious oily and deep fried foods. Because once you doctor says you have a high cholesterol level, you cannot eat anything tasty,life ends there.

Strong will power, to get fitness of your life: Same as above, you can maintain a normal looking Uncle or Aunty ji type bodies and look whole life , but don’t you think life is a one time opportunity, don’t you want to look fit, lean and active. I don’t know if running can cure dark circles too.

Strong will power, to improve your health: Same as above, you can keep catching cough, fever, cold, back ache, headache, knees ache etc whole life. But don’t you think you should work on improving your stamina, immunity and resistivity to common illnesses,by hard work. I bet, if you start running even in winters even in fogs,rains, you won’t catch cold (unless you are allergic to so many things), I don't.

And lastly

Strong will power to wake up early morning. Early because there is less pollution on Indian roads around 5AM. To get up early you must sleep early and take dinner early as well, so you are already coming into routine. Who doesn’t like to sleep whole day on a weekday or especially on a weekend, I guess those who want to be fit. Stop watching TV in nights, preferably sell you TV. TV is your biggest enemy at times, it burns your precious time always and destroys creativity.

Amazing Benefits:

Weight-loss: When you run, almost every body part moves, limbs, shoulders, abdomen, back, neck, waist everything, this stretches whole body, all this needs more energy so body burns your stored fats, Specially running early morning on an empty stomach triggers your metabolism early plus as you are on empty stomach body gets only stored fats to burn from various zones. This further lowers the blood sugar and cholesterol levels and so it reduces the risk of diabetes as well. Also if you have a poor appetite, running will improve your appetite as well. But it doesn’t mean you start eating a lot, prepare a diet plan.

Running definitely helps in building strong active bones and strengthen the muscles, tendons and ligaments in legs, calf, thighs, arms shoulders and abdomen. As the doctors say, while running the muscles cartilages and everything in our limbs, hips, knees, waist, abdomen and ankles compress and expand which pumps in more oxygen and that’s helps them in staying healthy. Without running or exercising bone cells, muscles and cartilage cells become inactive and gradually weak. 

Running also increases bone density, which keeps off osteoporosis away. 

With regular running you will gain more control on your body parts, actions and stability whether you walk or sit. So you improve yous reflexes in your movements (see, like Spiderman) , which makes you less susceptible to sudden sprains and strains. Remember your school days when you could bend anywhere and could tie your shoelaces.

Improve your cardiovascular fitness: Running helps in lowering of blood pressure by maintaining the elasticity in the arteries, really? yes, arteries are the blood vessels which carry oxygenated blood from heart to the whole body. While we run, we burn more energy, so body needs more oxygen, so arteries carry more oxygenated blood at a much higher rate. For this they expand and contract more rapidly than usually, and this keeps them working and elastic always and lowers the body blood pressure low. This reduces any possibility of developing any blockage in the arteries. 

If arteries are clogged or have any blockage the risk of heart disease and stroke increases. Now, its a common sense, if your arteries are well open then the blood will flow smoothly, the heart doesn’t have to work hard to pump the blood. For details please visit carotidarteryblockage.net  & livestrong.com

Healthy Heart: Running strengthens heart muscles, increases your blood circulation capacity and so once again it prevents you from heart attacks. The heart in an inactive person beats more than that of a runner or an athlete. Because an athlete's heart can pump more blood in each beat, because its an strong heart. 

Extra information, the average resting heart rate in adults is 60-90 bpm (beats per minute), however regular athletes have resting heart rates below than 60. (From Wikipedia) Miguel Indurain, a Spanish cyclist and five times Tour de France winner, had a resting heart rate of 28 beats per minute, one of the lowest ever recorded in a healthy human. I am not saying become Miguel or Lance Armstrong, but keep your heart healthy, the cardio system efficient and strong, just by normal running. 

You don’t even have to go for calculating your heart rates, unless you are planning to become a professional and keep a check on your performance improvement. In that case “Male Maximum Heart Rate = 214 - (0.8*age) and Female Maximum Heart Rate= 209 - (0.7*age). Never go above 90% of your MHR.

Improve Breathing and Lungs Capacity: Obviously running improves our lungs capacity, during running we inhale more air (oxygen) than usual; so we breathe faster which inflates lungs more and so keeps them strong powerful and fully utilized. As per Yoga Guru Baba “Ramdev” most of us don’t even know how to breathe correctly, and he is so correct. While running remember to breath from both your  nose and mouth together, this is the correct way.

Running slows down the aging process. Definitely, with the above mentioned benefits, anybody who has healthy heart, lungs, strong bones and muscles etc will age slowly. With running you will sleep better and earlier, you won’t struggle for it. I sometimes felt sleepy in office though. I bet running bring glow to face and reduces dark circles as well.

Great Feeling And Mental Relax: As you finish your everyday’s early morning run you feel great, you feel like a winner even if you are tired then, but you think of next day’s run. Definitely you feel free and separated from your daily life’s madness and office work. You think only about yourself. I feel the same.

There are many more other direct and indirect benefits associated to running, these are the once I have discovered in past 3 months. If you have other benefits which I didn't mention, please do share, you are most welcome in the comments section.


Who can Run:
Any human being from any age group, who can who can walk, can initially jog and then later start running for shorter distances and then to go up to any extent I mean distance. 

But remember everyone’s body is different so please know your limits, gradually, slowly increase your targets.

How to Run:
Start with stretching of Legs, Arms, bend and move you backbone left and right , but slowly , for two minutes.
Start with a slow walk, then jog for 10 minutes and then increase your pace. You can go up to 8 km/hr, that's  is a good speed. I found it the best and less tiring. 

What to wear & Other Stuff:

Wear anything initially whatever you feel is comfortable, night suit, Jeans, Pajama, I have seen people running in lungis J etc.

Once you are a regular runner and start liking your new passion, then invests on better branded stuffs, on shorts, Track Pants, Capris, 3/4th, Running Tights , T-shirts , full, half or sleeve less jackets. Running tights for sure reduces muscle cramps and helps with chaffing in long run. Believe it or not stylish running apparel is definitely a motivating factor, I felt it. 

I liked this site lifemojo.com , buy online, they offer great discounts and free home deliveries in Bangalore and in big cities. I have used it twice and found it cool. Browse internet for tips, what's good and bad on apparels, there are millions of suggestions waiting for you.

Buy a pair of branded comfortable running shoes and comfortable socks, right running shoes is a most important factor for ankle and sudden foot sprain. Browse web for tips, there are plenty of suggestions in various sites.

Don’t forget to carry a light MP3 player with you, music and songs again are a great pain killer, you don’t feel alone and tired and at the same time you don’t think about the pain. Last month I bought an iPod shuffle, it’s great, light and perfect for running.

Carry ½ liter of water bottle, drink two sips after every half kms, I do this and don’t feel my throat getting dried of excessive inhaling and exhaling. 

I prefer running outside early morning (5am to 6am) in open air instead of running on a treadmill in gym.

Disclaimer:

At the end, my suggestion is to try running at least 5 times a week as per your strengths and body limits, browse internet there are many forums where people (especially from EU and US) share their experiences and suggestions. The disclaimer part: Don’t forget to consult your physician before you start running if you think you need to take special care and you are not comfortable. Also this write up is just for information purposes for personal education only, please don’t use this for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease. :)

~bd


P.S. I lost 5 kg in 2 months by simply running