I swallowed my tooth

The people who have never experienced a dental pain can claim to be the luckiest people on earth. If you have a dental pain and you are in Sweden, that makes it worse. The dentists in Sweden are highly unavailable and they are super expensive. There are travel packages in Sweden for dental treatment in foreign countries like Hungary, Greece etc. Many people avail them. After three encounters with Dentists in Sweden i have realized that why do they have these travel packages. May be it is just me who have bad experiences, i have three examples of poor skills of dentists here. And they gave me a feeling that these street dentists might have better skills than them.

In this article i will write about my entire life’s experience with dentists. It happened with four dentists and each of them is worse than the other.

1st time:

I always had a great oral health. All it started a couple of years ago with a growing wisdom tooth and since then the problems are there. My wisdom tooth grew in the middle of both jaws in the back and caused a lot of pain. I tried to book a normal appointment for dentist, but it was not available for at least more than a year. I went to some local private clinics but they were all busy. So i went for an emergency dental treatment in Boras. The dentist took an x-ray and said that this tooth is growing very uneven, so we have to remove it. I said Ok! It seemed like a normal procedure, she gave me anesthesia. She started taking the tooth out. I was totally calm.

Dentist: Shit!

Me: What?

Dentist: Half of the tooth is broken.

Me: So!

Dentist: We need to do a surgery to take other part out

Me: Ok

Dentist: But we can’t do it here. I need to call the main hospital

Me: Thinking…. (WTF)

She went and did some calls and came back.

Dentist: Sorry the hospital is closed for today and they have an appointment for tomorrow afternoon. I know it is going to hurt, but I cannot do anything now. I am sorry. You can  buy some pain killers and eat two tablets after every hour.

Me: Speechless.

I did not have pain, my mouth was bleeding and I had to go home and wait for another day. And then she asked me to pay her fees. I paid and left.

That was one of the worst and longest nights of my life. The next afternoon I went to the main hospital. The dentist there could not speak English and most of the nurses could do that. He did the surgery. Removed the half broken tooth, did some stitches in my mouth and then asked me to pay 5000 SEK. I paid. And after a few days I recovered.

Second Time

It went fine for awhile and then the damn pain started again. I went for an emergency treatment due to severity of the pain. They took an x-ray of the whole teeth

Dentist: In which tooth you have pain.

Me:  I have doubt about three teeth, I am not sure. There is pain in whole mouth

Dentist: But I can treat only one

Me: Ok! Please tell me which one

Dentist: I do not know, you have to choose

Me: I am not sure which one it is

Dentist: We do not have time, please pick one

Me: Ok! Take the one the right side

Dentist: She did a treatment for 10 minutes

Me: Will it be fine now?

Dentist: No I just did a temporary filling. You need to meet another dentist

Me: Ok then please give me an appointment

Dentist: No you have to visit a private dentist. We do only emergency treatment here.

Me: Ok!

I left and tried to get an appointment to a private dentist in my town. But there was no appointment for some weeks. I was in a meeting in Stockholm, the pain started again. I asked the receptionist to check for dental appointment. She tried to call at many places and found one place that had a facility. I drove for more than an hour in Stockholm to reach that place and they were closing. They asked me to come again next day.

I went back to Fagersta that is 2 hours drive. In the way I called my insurance company and asked them to find a dentist for me in the way. They could not find any dentist. I reached home and spent the night on pain killers. The next morning i tried to find dentists in the whole region. It was Friday and there were no dentists available in whole county. Not even in private clinics. One clinic gave me an appointment and when I went there, they said that they too busy. Then I went back to Stockholm and went to the same place. They asked me to come next morning. I waited until next morning and finally found a dentist after three days

Dentist: In which tooth you have pain.

Me: I do not know. I have got treatment for one before but it did not help. May be it is one of these two.

Dentist: I have time for only one. Pick one

Me: I do not know which one is the trouble maker.

Dentist: I do not have enough time, please choose one

Me: What options I have for treatment?

Dentist: We will do an emergency treatment or remove the tooth. In case of emergency treatment, you will have to visit another dentist for root canal.

Me: Not again! Please remove the tooth.

Dentist: It will cost an extra amount, since it is Saturday

Me: Ok!

My tooth was removed and I paid a lot of money. I came back to Fagersta. 

Third Time

After a couple of days the pain started again. I went back to the dentist in the hospital. They gave me an appointment with the same dentist.

I went on my appointment, and the dentist took an x-ray again

Dentist: You have to see a dentist and a dental hygienist

Me: Yes that is why I am here, can you recommend any

Dentist: I do not know, may be check on the internet and call them

Me: Ok

Dentist: I will remove this tooth and hopefully you will not be in need of any further treatment. But you need to see a dental hygienist.

Me: Ok

Dentist started the operation

Dentist: Shit!! Shit! Shit! Stay upright, try to cough, ohh my god. Try to cough please

Me: Looking at her and she is very nervous

Dentist: The tooth fell inside. The vacuum pump did not work.

Me: Ok!

Dentist: Now you have to go for an x-ray. I am not sure if it went to your stomach or your lungs.

Me: ahhhhhhhhhhh

The dentist sent me to a general physician; she ordered an x-ray of my lungs and stomach. It took almost 2 hours to do that procedure. In x-ray they found out that it went to my stomach. Otherwise I had to go through angiography. Thanks God! I was relieved.

Then I went back to dentist with the report.

Dentist:  Now I will not remove the tooth and will do an emergency treatment on it.

Me: Ok!

Dentist: She did some treatment and booked me an appointment for the dental hygienist as well.

Then I paid a lot of fees for all the bad treatment I got. I have lost one tooth, ate one tooth and there are still two teeth that need the treatment of the dentists. And I do not know if I want to visit a dentist after all of this.

And just today I have received another invoice from the hospital for the x-rays and visit to the other doctor. And I do not know why I am paying for all this when the problems have got much worse than they were ever before.

Valborgmässafton in Uppsala

A view of the economics garden in Uppsala university

There are hardly any public celebrations in Sweden that I know, that does not involve alcohol. No matter what are the origins of the celebrations. On this weekend, once again I have experienced Walpurgis Night (Valborgmässafton) in Sweden. And this time it was different because I went to Uppsala to experience it. By the way this blog is based on my personal experience; the reader perspective on everything I am writing can be different.

About the origins of Walpurgis Night there is a lot of information available on the internet. My experience of it has always been drunken college/ University people running a colorful parade in the center of the cities. Majority of the city gathers to see these parades. After the sun set there is a big bon fire and some fireworks. It is a hard time for the local police, trying to regulate.

In most of the cities the parade is arranged by the local colleges, and the students build some models and acts to show some events and changes that they have experienced during the past year. In some big student towns, it is different.  It is organized by the Universities. Uppsala University organizes this parade in the river. Where the students build boats and run it through the river in the city center. The rector of the Uppsala univeristy raise the cap in a ceremony outside the university's library building where a lot of people come to visit this event. In the morning students normally start by Champagne breakfast and keep on drinking until the next morning. In Chalmers University Gothenburg and Lund University in Lund also arrange similar rallies. But in Uppsala it is the most popular. Here is a short video of the event

Since I was at work, therefore I could not attend the breakfast and the boat rally. But I had enough time to watch the bonfire and the parties in the night. Uppsala’s student union has a lot of sections. These sections are called as Nations and every nation own a huge building have big bars and dance floors. In order to attend the events there, you should either be a student or you can buy a guest card for some price. On this day there are long lines outside each nation. When I arrived in Uppsala in the evening the whole city was trashed. All you can see in the parks were a lot of drunken people and bottles of alcohol everywhere. There were some party buses with loud music in them and people dancing here and there. Here is a picture of the park in Uppsala University.

The sun was about to set, so I went to the Gamla (Old) Uppsala to watch the bonfire. There were a lot of people there. Most of them were the families with children. It was very windy and cold, yet a lot of people came to attend the event. The pile of the wood was really high. After the sunset they lighted up the woods and it was a really big fire.

I left the place to do the dinner with a friend. We went to the city center, it was full of people. There were big lines outside all nations. After the dinner, I was wandering around the city and looking at the people running here and there. I was walking through a street and it was the back side of a nation. The street ended up in a door that was an emergency exit of a dance floor. When I was standing outside the door, thinking of going back, a security guard opened the door from outside and said, what are you doing outside? Come inside. I did not say anything and I was in a nation. Then instead of going home, I was there until 4AM. After that I had to sleep in my car. It was a nice experience. The next day is also a long story. But I must admit that Uppsala is a lively city and everyone should visit Uppsala on Valborgmässafton.