Adventures in Italian dentistry

Ever had a toothache in a foreign country?

I've been feeling some tooth pain lately, so I went to a dentist. He's Italian, but speaks fluent English and graduated from a reputable dental school in the US. I told him what was wrong. He sprayed some cold air on my teeth, took a couple of x-rays, and declared that I need root canal, core build-up and a cubic zirconia crown on tooth 16. He gave me a printed price estimate that took my breath away. (His office is on a ritzy street, and I suspect there is an inflated price to help pay for the ritzy rent.)

I was not prepared to take action immediately. Instead, I emailed my DC dentist and asked his opinion. (I had just seen him in April, at which time he did x-rays.) He replied that he'd be surprised if I needed such extensive work on that tooth. He referred to the tooth as if it were in the very back of my mouth, which it isn't.

So I looked up tooth numbering systems on the internet. Turns out the US uses a different numbering system than many other countries. In the US, tooth 16 is the 3rd molar, the wisdom tooth, on the upper left. In the FDI numbering system, tooth 16 is the 1st molar on the upper right.

The strange thing is that the tooth in question, the one that hurts, is the first molar on the upper left. I emailed the DC guy again to let him know it's a different tooth, and I'm awaiting his reply.

Meanwhile, I'm seeking an opinion from another dentist in Rome. I've called several, and it appears that dentists, along with people from all other professions in Italy, take the entire month of August off for vacation. I'll just keep trying.

Siamo qui*

*We're here. In Rome, that is. We arrived on June 1. We haven't posted on the blog till now because we don't have home internet access. We signed up for it, but apparently it takes a while, quite a long while, for them to set it up. Till someone comes over to install it, I'm afraid we won't be able to post pictures. In the meantime, we'll just post a few words.

Pasta, pizza, gelato -- how about those words? We've eaten so much of those items lately that they're practically coming out of our ears, but are we tired of them yet? No! Is it even possible to get tired of gelato? I daresay it's not. We'll post more about the many delightful gelaterie of Rome in the future.

We've been checking out some sights. Hard to avoid it when you live in an ancient capital like this one! Every corner you turn, there's some archaeological sight, monument, renaissance church, or festival.

Meanwhile our Italian has actually worsened. Three months ago we gave presentations on newspaper articles in Italian, using the subjunctive and hypothetical phrases. These days, without the 4 hours of daily Italian class we had in DC, we speak mostly English. (Everyone at work speaks English.) Gotta get some more practice. Ciao for now.