Fill 'Er Up

I came to Japan knowing that my teeth were probably going to need some attention during my year here. I've held out for nine months, but just after I returned to Tokyo last month, I thought I cracked yet another molar while eating popcorn. Turns out that I hadn't cracked the molar, I had merely dislodged a part of an old filling. There was no pain, but I could feel a jagged egde running along the side of my tooth up to and seemingly under my gumline. This was enough to scare me into calling the dentist.

Okay, now you might be wondering how I managed to call a dentist, especially considering that the last time I had to go see a doctor, I was forced to take along the five-year-old head teacher with me. She is a delightful child, quite well-behaved, but is prone to doing things like nodding understandingly when she should be translating. This makes it a bit difficult to find out things like details of medical treatment.

Luckily, I found an advertisement for an English-speaking dentist in Tokyo. She is Japanese, but trained in Australia, and though I wouldn't normally choose a dentist based on an ad in a magazine whose revenue comes, in large part, from ads from hostess clubs in Roppongi, I decided to bite the bullet (because biting bullets couldn't possibly result in any more damage to my teeth than eating popcorn did) and call her.

I made and cancelled an appointment, then remade an appointment for yesterday. Before leaving work on Friday, I printed out the map and directions and Ken, seeing this, said, "Be careful!" He wasn't warning me about the neighborhood (a place called Nishi-eifuku, on the other side of Shimo-kitazawa) but about...hmmm...maybe English speakers? Maybe dentists? Maybe English-speaking dentists? Couldn't quite figure that one out.

Anyway, the office was easy to find, though it took over an hour for me to get there.

Here is the information desk and the area just inside the front door where one, of course, leaves one's shoes to don slippers. The office stays much cleaner this way, I suppose--and I also suppose that I probably should find it strange that I don't find this kind of thing strange anymore.


The dentist was nice, spoke fluent English with Japanese conversational habits, apologized for keeping me waiting for all of three minutes (even though I was in the chair ten minutes before my appointment time), and took care of two of my teeth including the cracked one (but didn't touch the one that worries me the most). Because I don't have dental as part of my insurance, I had to pay cash. At a dentist in the states, this might be a worrisome situation, but for the dentist visit, two x-rays, anaesthesia, and two fillings, I paid 11,760 yen--or about $118. American.