As a kid I don’t remember going to a dentist. But I do have a faint memory of going to dentist who lived two houses behind us. Now I am not sure if I went there for me or my sister. But I remember another incident in 2004-2005 when I was here in the US.

I was planning to go to India in a few months and I started having a tooth ache. This was a time when I did not have any dental insurance. I was in a tough spot, for almost two months I held on to the pain. Some over the counter medication and home remedies and google searches to reduce pain helped me move.

Today thinking about that time, I wonder why I took that route instead of a much safer more easy route with good medical coverage and so on. Well some decisions don’t have explanations. Then I went to India and got my tooth extracted. It cost me only $45 worth of Indian Rupees that time and I went to a reputed dentist.

I have no idea why I did not go to a dentist back then. Today when I saw my bill. The extraction costs around $800. With insurance it was just $75. I am thinking back in 2005 it could have been lesser. I had the money but I had this fear that if I step into any dentist office without an insurance I will be skinned. So many people had cautioned me. But the fact is there are so many people in US without an insurance. I just googled and found that 76 million people don’t have a dental insurance.

Anyway today as I was sitting in the dentist’s office on the chair and the dentist was extracting my tooth I went decades back and replayed those times. So many mixed emotions and shades of emotions passed through my mind

Categories: Memories

Tags: dental, dental insurance