Dental issues, or, this is a thread in which you whine about the poor state of your mouth

Other than that, and a few dings my teeth are in pretty good nick, a few years ago I went to the dentist for the first time in 13 years and only needed 3 fillings.

Ah, but mine were fine too for the first seven post-dentist years... in year 8 I had my first bout of toothache since the 80s, and during year 9 I took to chewing on only one side of my mouth to avoid the pain. This is year 10. I'm too scared to go back.

(I'm sure some people would say the sound of my whiny voice in their ear is not unlike same.)

It was quite an experience. I just turned 25 so I guess it's time to start being responsible. He also wants to remove my wisdom teeth (they fit fine and don't hurt) because he says there's no way I can keep 'em clean and they'll just turn into dumpsters. I think I will choose to disagree with him on this point because I really hate the idea of having them out.

After the visit I went and bought 5 soft toothbrushes and two packs of unwaxed floss and a bottle of Listerine. Blood sucks. So does the smell of filling cement.

Also - use ACT at night. Flouride, doncha know.

and godspeed, gareth.

I'll have to second this. Admittedly I had a very easy removal -- nothing impacted, I was up and around the following day -- and YMMV and all. But they were hard to clean and on one tooth the gum line was pulling away drastically.

But then again I don't notice teeth nearly as much as I used to, like, when I had braces on my teeth I immediately noticed the straightness, whiteness, etc. of someone's teeth. Now I don't really care.

Except about mine, which, after 3 years of smoking, are starting to look dingy.

First dental visit since summer '93 is pencilled in for May 1st. Contrary to what it says on the NHS website, my local dentist doesn't take non-fee-exempt NHS patients so I'll be paying full-whack, however much more that is. Wish me luck.

I enjoy going to the dentist. My dentist is next door to hstencil's office. Last time I went, "Who Sucked Out the Feeling" by Superdrag kicked in on my minidisc player right as the dentist was giving me my novacaine shot. I thought that was special.

eep

1. Propensity for dental caries (plaque etc.) is not equivalent across the board. There is evidence that some people are genetically predisposed to have more trouble with it than others. It also gets worse as you age.

2. Most people don't know how to properly brush their teeth in the first place because they have bad habits from childhood that nobody bothered to correct. My buddy with the drills told me that a soft brush is best because you're not scraping the glass clean, you're wiping it down, and the softer the brush, the easier it is on you to get a good swabbing around the gumline.

3. Of the over 500 diff. types of microorganisms dwelling in your mouth and feeding off the plaque, at least a few have been linked to heart disease and other more serious illnesses. Once your gums become inflamed, the blood barrier is weakened (hence the bleeding when you floss sometimes) and you become susceptible to infection from the things that live in your mouth. It's vaguely frightening. Also, viruses take up residence in your toothbrush - if you continue to use the same toothbrush after getting over a viral infection, it can become a vector and you can get sick all over again.

There's the full extent of the hex he put on me. I hope you enjoyed it.

(trying to figure out some way to work the Seinfeld phrase "anti-dentite" into this posting...ahh, forget it)

how do i shot hydrocodone highly qualified dentist who will replace my filling without bankrupting me?

http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/1306/bujapanrobotsxdg103zq0.jpg

Simroid says "ouch!" whenever a trainee dentist wielding a drill touches a nerve

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/nov/30/robots.japan

That picture is going to haunt my dreams!

can somebody talk to me about gums please? mine are kind of irritated lately and they've been bleeding, i don't like it at all. i need commiseration immediately.

you need to see a dentist or periodontist

no, they suck at commiserating about your teeth

they take an interest, but there's no sense of sympathy, and they tend to suggest it's all your fault

i know i'm going to the damn dentist. i just wanna know that I WILL LIVE

you'll probably die

eventually

yes.

you should maybe know that bleeding gums = an infection. sometimes it only takes a medicated mouthwash (RX from dentist) to fix. do not do not do not do not let it get out of control. even really fucked up teeth are completely fixable if your gums are in good shape. if your gums are fucked then theres no way around removal.

removal of my teeth?

that's really fucking exciting. great.

i went to the dentist a few months ago and they said they'd have to do some procedure on my gums and the bleeding should stop. now i'm waiting on fucking insurance crap.

well, if it was really really bad, which im sure its not. im just saying fix it while its easy to fix.

also, dentist told me if your gums bleed when you floss the worst thing you can do is avoid flossing there. 3 weeks of twice a day flossing will stop the bleeding.

Brush your gums too, if you don't already.

right.

i know, i know, i'm going to fix it. i just hate teeth. i mean, why does chocolate EXIST if we're not supposed to eat it without brushing our teeth to death? =*(

well i kind of brush them, i don't know, i mean i mouthwash like nobody's business

brush the gums that is.

timely revival, one of my molars just shattered.

oh no, i'm so sorry.

ARRRRGH I HATE TEETH. I had a sinus infection last week and the pressure in my head made my teeth hurt a lot, which suggests that my roots have rotted out into my sinus cavities without me noticing, which means a lot of shitty dental work. I have the worst teeth ever, just naturally. Not including, like, McGowan-style self-abuse.

okay good, this is the commiseration i need.

You know you can overbrush (and thus badly damage) yr gums as well by the way, as my ex discovered.

Not including, like, McGowan-style self-abuse.

He turned 50 last week!

i know trayce, i used to brush too hard -- now i do the gentle circles thing, which is actually really nice.

yikes Porkpie!

Surmounter, the dentist will probably want to do either a quadrant deep cleaning or possibly a gum resection. I had to have the deep cleaning done two years ago after 5 years of not going to the dentist and not flossing consistently for basically all my life. It wasn't too awful but took a long time. Go for the gas option as well as the numbing if they offer it. The gas makes time (and the scraping) not matter so much. I've seen the results of resection, which is major major surgery with stitches and everything, and I don't ever want to have that done to me.

omg. okay. thank you.

i think i'm just going to stop eating. lose the holiday weight and prevent and further tooth decay. YES.

Jeez.
Do watch bleeding gums, as if gum decay goes too far your teeth can beging to wobble.
My dentist is very coy when it comes to telling me about the half price dental care I am probably entitled to. They sense I am not of this place and freely wheel me into €100 X Rays that tell him things I was already guessing, only he knows the gritty detail. It turns out a wisdom tooth extraction takes about 30 seconds! not counting the needle jabbing.

There is an area I believe to be a cavity but he says it isn't but I'm convinced it is but maybe he knows best, even though he was more concerned in fixing his printer.

good, ethical dentists tend not to reside in rural ireland. and i've never really looked after my teeth like i should. i reckon come thirty/thirty five i'll just pay a fortune to get everything fixed.

i am vaguely aware that this is a bad attitude.

I haven't been back to my dentist after she fucked up a filling, leaving me with a huge gap between my teeth that regularly gets enormous chunks of food embedded in it. Actually I did go back once, shortly after, 'cause I thought the filling must have fallen out. She said "what do you mean, it's FINE", I said "it's FINE is it, ok FINE [grumble mutter fucking bitch]".

I can't stand flossing.

Can I recommend the Philips Sonicare? It's very expensive but has done wonders to my dental and gum health. My dentist made me get one and every time I use it it's like I just had a cleaning. My gums stopped bleeding, it's really a wonderful device. And it's not one of those 20 dollar things that just rotate, it's serious heavy duty sonics or something.

Sonicare + Showerfloss + xylitol has saved me from dental decline. My mom had all her teeth out and has dentures - I don't want to go that route.

what the fuck is the sonicare??? i need to get me one...

okay the showerfloss is kind of scary but i'm very tempted. what's xylitol?

he's a little green man that cleans your mouth, i think. i need me one too.

Xylitol = sweetener (of the alcohol sugar sort, like mannitol and sorbitol) made from birch that starves the bacteria that attack teeth and apparently helps remineralize the surface of teeth. I found several well documented studies online before I switched to it, because the hype about it seemed so overblown. It's found naturally in strawberries and prunes. You can find it in some gums and mints and toothpastes. It can have some negative gastrointestinal effects - I can't eat it so no mints/gum for me, but the toothpaste is fine.

You do have to be careful with the Showerfloss and increase the water pressure gradually, but it works better than string floss imo (and I'll use it and hate using string floss).

what is showerfloss?

It's a waterblaster for your teeth - hooks up behind a showerhead and has a valve that diverts water from the shower to this small pick. You run this focused stream of water around in your mouth, pointing it between your teeth and having it blast away at the gumline.

i rly find it hilarious

Whoa, waterboarding meets Marathon Man!

I stay away from the dentist. Haven't been for maybe ten years. Don't want the xrays. I'll go if I have an emergency, but in the meantime I floss and brush like crazy and go after tartar with a metal pick.

WOW, really? that's so intense. good for you.

um, i'm not sure if the water from my shower is something i want in my mouth. thanks for info though.

Is your shower supply not the same as your drinking water supply? It's generally the same stuff in the US.

Also, hi Beth!

not in ireland, AFAIK the hot stuff is stored in open attic tanks. thats another thread though.

at first the idea of showerfloss was weird to me but the more i think abt it the more intrigued i am

but yeah flossing is the most important thing omg and really not that hard - i use this great oral-b stuff that is more like tape and does not hurt or break and works
+ soft or ultra-soft toothbrush
+ sensitive teeth toothpaste (arm&hammer sensitive - i've retreated from health-food store brands gotta say) and not brushing v hard, yeah, more in massaging way than brushing way

It's that flossing is hard (although it's not the easiest thing in the world) but it's so BOOOORING. I already hate shaving, cleaning my teeth, how much more time must I spend in the bathroom at these onerous chores?

yes it feels good to finally know how to brush.

i know ledge, i'm with ya.

at some point flossing became less boring to me and just a thing that is done
when i was a kid we had a waterpik (someone gave it to us? i don't remember), which i credit with preventing many cavities b/c i mean as if kids or even teenagers floss

If you floss while watching TV it's better. You're entertained, and the crud-flecks have farther to travel in order to plaster themselves to your TV screen. It's such a small leap across the sink to the bathroom mirror.

Ew, that's almost as bad as picking at feet in front of the TV!

Just don't do it when the Queen is visiting.

i use my electric toothbrush when at pc if alone.

in the future v v v small robots will do all this for us

really

YES

I can hardly wait. Shaving too, little robots all over my face.

and sex.

a researcher was on the radio this morning talking abt sex with robots
and i was like well okay there are many controversies in that and blah blah so how about just start with a robot to cook food and clean house and floss teeth and move on from there

but apparently people are pretty into the robot sex

why wouldn't one be, really

the cooking/cleaning/flossing robot doesn't even have to be human-like, which even makes them easier to develop
whereas the sex robots are being developed to be as human-like as possible, which is more complicated obv
i don't really want to have sex with robots

i just talked a co-worker's ear off abt this issue lol

hahahahahaha

it has turned into a bigger conversation

i can only imagine

I'll try to bring that up at work tonight. I was lifting a bag of flour onto the self service (another type of robots, this one with bad manners) at Tesco and I think I sprained my wrist. I want to phone work and tell them I wont be carrying any plates/writing down orders/opening bottles of wine/doing much.
They will probably replace me with a robot.

just wanna say, from me and anyone else with bad teething lurking on this thread, thanks for the advice! i am like, going to go buy some floss today.

yeah, i bought some the last time i read this thread. it makes me feel very self-righteous when i see the unopened box on the bathroom shelf.

:-{

is it damn expensive, or was I overcharged?

bag of flour, sprained wrist, floss or robot who carries plates?

go with third option

didn't find it to be so, i mean i've had it three months now and i've still got it all left.

serious answer- no, not expensive. got a coupla boxes in tesco on offer, couple of quid.

I always thot flossing was retardo until I got two crowns and now stuff gets stuck in there like CRAZY cos they're not exactly the same shape as the orig teeth. Now I'm obsessive.

i had a filling a month ago and now it turns out the same tooth needs a root canal

this will take two appointments

then it needs a crown, which will take another two appointments

would like to fast-forward, please

a DRY SOCKET was always described to me on par with oh say childbirth or kidney stones.

I had a big ass molar out last week and now I have the dreaded DRY SOCKET

Having neither birthed a child nor passed a kidney stone, I cannot comment on the relative painfulness, but I can affirm that it fucking sucks.

oh no! i have never experienced but i fear it bc it sounds awful. hugs to u!!

i have on again off again sensitivity in a recently filled tooth that i think prob spells a root canal in my future. ughh why do i hate flossing so much.

Teeth wtf why are you always causing troubles? Hurt when they are in, hurt when they come out, fucking teeth

fucking teeth

mouths are gross

when last year began I promised myself that I would finally go to the dentist again and get all the issues that have been developing sorted out. I had a load of work booked jan-feb, but march was quiet, so I promised myself, fear be damned, I'll book an appointment and get it done. And then I got sick with what I reckon was Covid, then all the dentists shut down, and a year later those problems are all a bit worse and my anxiety over my teeth/getting them fixed is worse, and fucking hell I genuinely feel I will never ever get them sorted.

DEEP BREATH.

<3

Damn dry-socket sounds awful. I have only had one wisdom tooth out, I didn't get a dry-socket, and yet it hurt quite a bit for months (long after the wound was healed, nerve pain perhaps?).

I have a wisdom tooth coming out horizontally and I dont currently have dental. It isnt causing issues yet, and it's been emerged for a few years, but it will require surgery if it ever causes me bother and it will be expensive :-$

tried sensodyne for my teeth-sensitivity
used it for maybe 3 days tops - it gave me weird inflammation inside my mouth of my top & bottom lip, like that burning feeling you get before ulcers break out - so i stopped right away, havent used since.

did salt water rinses for a few days til it cleared up. brushed w normal toothpaste two times & it flared back up!

idk wtf is in sensodyne but i am
cursing it now. pain in the ass. its not horrible painful but just so annoying

so now i’m like brushing w water/baking soda & all this hippie fuckin bullshit & im so mad about it

Stevie i feel u mayne

Def, once mortgage sorted, tackling this mess

my 12-y-o needs a crown :(

i swear to god he’s been brushing twice a day ever since he got teeth. drinks soda maybe once a month at most. i think he has probably just inherited my bad toof genes :/

Its a thing, notwithstanding truly awful neglect of all issues dental until (crossover here with LOTR thread*) having four teeth pulled in my first ever visit to a dentist, a decade later dentists were *still* remarking on the lamentable combo of tough roots and soft teeth that ruined many a 45 minute schedule

* Every visit thereafter required a volume of LOTR as a bribe

Its a thing, notwithstanding truly awful neglect of all issues dental until (crossover here with LOTR thread*) having four teeth pulled in my first ever visit to a dentist, a decade later dentists were *still* remarking on the lamentable combo of tough roots and soft teeth that ruined many a 45 minute schedule

I had an adult tooth knocked out by a friend when I was 10, which necessitated 6 (SIX) months of twice-weekly trips to the dentist to get a post and a false tooth fitted, which to this day looks terrible but I decline every time a dentist tells me they could replace it because who wants that fuss. Also, because I had a heart murmur, every serious invasive dental surgery required I ingest a shopping bag full of antibiotics beforehand, to prevent an infection that could spread to the heart. For these reasons and so many others I have spent my whole life puting off visits to the dentist until absolutely necessary, which is a dumb habit I would like to snap out of. But the truth is I am dreading the inevitable visit once the dentists reopen.

Im much better about it now, but in the way life so often rewards courage in the first instance with a real ballbuster, once i took charge of my own dentist schedule (16, fans) i screwed up my courage and just set up the initial visit and agreed to all the etceteras and it took everything i had to return after the first actual-work session

Once he had done with me (two further visits) i didnt go next nigh nor near a dentist for another decade.

That fella was much gentler so i manage the two-yearly visits since ok

My dentist died two months ago, and now something has fallen out at the back of my mouth.

correlation is not causation

I have a bunch of broken teeth, including some that are worn down to the gum. I also have a missing crown on my front tooth. I know I'm going to miss out on future jobs because of this, but I doubt I'll ever be able to afford thousands of dollars worth of repair.

VegGrl: I use sensodyne without issues but my partner has SLS sensitivity and had the same issues you had for years until it was diagnosed.

https://www.bustle.com/life/the-3-best-sls-free-toothpastes-16977453

She swears by this stuff:
https://www.bleedinggums.com/toothpastes/all-in-one/

thank you!! this is helpful info

i was hoping so! your description matches hers exactly and this has been a major game changer for her.

The better half of January has been dominated by dental issues and I am so over it. Fuck you, teeth!

I guess it is more the absence of a tooth that has been a problem. Fuck you, teeth sockets!

:(

i am in sensitive tooth hell now wrought by my own dragging my feet on calling the dentist

tooth went from “sometimes painfully senstitive” to “defcon 5” on Thursday morning - booked for dentist monday

in the meantime all food i eat now must be mush & exactly room temperature or i get crazy shooting pain in my tooth

i never knew how much i would miss hot food ;_;

TEETH ARE THE WORST

sorry, that's rough

Ugh, that sounds awful. I know that will happen to me sometime soon; I get twinges of it and so far they go away with sensodyne but the day will come when I won't be able to escape it.

teeth are seriously the worst. and they are really fucking great about acting up on the weekend when there is no help readily at hand :(

vg defcon 5 is the least severe defcon but sorry about yr pain that sux

i always get my defcons mixed up lol!!

the most depressing thing is adding cold water to my hot coffee & drinking it through a straw
like, the temp at which you’d reheat it bc its gone cold is the temp i’m drinking it :(

microwaving applesauce to remove the “chill” is a close second

Water from tap coming out really cold over last couple of days not comfortable on mouth.

Things getting trapped under sideways wisdom tooth still. Seems to be happening too often. Maybe there's a hole next to it that wasn't there before the last couple of years. Hope I don't lose any more functional teeth.

The good news: I have an appointment with a dental surgeon regarding removing my wisdom teeth in order to fix a neighboring molar that is giving me grief.

The bad news: The first available appointment is for March 29.

:(

dentist first thing this morning
root canal + crown = 3 hours in the chair weee
but much as i hate the dentist & these long haul procedures this is the least stressed out that i have been because i was sooooooo happy that my dental misery was over
i dont even mind the couple of days of post-root canal discomfort

Hurrah

That's cool you're getting in all done at the same time. I had to get mine done on two trips.

What kind of crown are you getting?

crown is already got!

my dentist is fkn george jetson w same day 3-d printed crowns. it rules. so much better than dealing w temporaries etc

so that 3 hours this morning was root canal AND crown :D

holy crap! that is some flying car biznis!

very glad you have got that sorted out vg!!

Woah

the technician showed me the on-screen 3d rendering of my tooth & it was O_O

they have all kinds of amazing tech gadgets there, its p cool

.

Update: I have an April 23 appointment for wisdom tooth removal. Must cope with tooth pain until then, but at least I have a day to anticipate. Already laying in chicken soup in anticipation of the recovery period.

good luck <3 sending good thoughts for a relatively painfree recovery, or a comfortable one at least

Thanks. Friday morning means I can hibernate Saturday and Sunday. I may even take narcotics, if the dentist will give me any.

honestly coming off the whatever the fuck they pump into your arm was the worst part of it for me. was prescribed Vicodin but never needed it for the pain. I took some anyway and it was not really all that fun. ate Spaghetti-Os for 10 days straight. sucked but whatever, I didn't dry socket myself and that's half the battle now isn't it

the worst two-word combo in English language

dry

socket

Hello from my preop bed, where I just talked with the anesthesiologist and told him I have zero concerns about pain post knee surgery after my dry socket experience earlier in the year.

Having three impacted wisdom teeth out turned out to be nbd; hope ot is similarly smooth sailing for you jlu!

Update: Teeth removed earlier today, feeling surprisingly little pain! I didn't even have to ask for a limited prescription of narcotics to get em through the weekend.

When I got my wisdoms removed years ago, I was prescribed percocet: take one every four hours. But I took four every one hour and don't remember anything at all

O_O

are you even here now

Gah, apparently I need a root canal. Scheduled for next Tuesday (wish it was sooner because I'm in pretty persistent pain atm). Anyone with root canal stories to share? I hear and would like to believe that modern anesthetics have made it a less grueling experience than it used to be. tbh I'm totally over this stupid tooth, which has been a periodic problem for about 8 years, so the idea of drilling the shit out of it is actually pretty appealing.

my mouth is fine, it’s my youth that’s the problem

Will there be a crown as well? Root canals suck, but so does going to the dentist. I have a fatalistic attitude, and something like dental masochism: I know it's the right thing to do, so bring it on, pain & all.

You might try taking a couple tylenol (not ibuprofen) before you go in, to bolster whatever they inject you with

i’ve had a couple. you have to keep your mouth open for an annoyingly long time but otherwise they were fine. i got a crown each time. i think each one took three visits all told.

I didn't feel any pain during or after my root canal/crown but I guess it's common enough he gave me a prescription for 30 vicodin that I never filled.

Was still smoking at the time so the most annoying thing was my lips feeling too weird to smoke for several hours.

yeah i think the hardest part is the amount of time w mouth open in the chair, especially if it’s a big molar

but it’s worth it, given the pain beforehand yknow?

my dentist does same-day crowns bc thrh have a 3d printer thingy which makes it longer still but: having not to come back or deal w temporary crown is cool as hell

I've had more than my share of both root canals and crowns and have never been given narcotics. Waiting for the numbing stuff to wear off is the worst part of it. Also, if there's any cement left over from the crown, that can be irritating but will crumble away in a few days.

VG, I went in for a crown about a month ago and my dentist had just gotten the scanner/3D printer thingy, but when they tried to use it on me, it wasn't working correctly. They called tech support with me just reclined in the chair with my mouth propped open the entire time. Eventually, a decision was made just to do it the traditional way.

booo

:(

Thx for the reports! Yes, there will be a crown at the end of it but I have to go back to my regular dentist for that. So they'll put some kind of temporary thing in there and then I'll go back to him to finish it off. (Hopefully very quickly, because I gather there's a risk of cracking til you get it properly sealed.)

I had a crown done recently, and the biggest PIA was having to go back multiple times to get it fitted/tested!

The worse one for me was root planing. Ugh. Never again. It made every tooth in my mouth so sensitive I could hardly eat for weeks. And my stupid country wont give out strong painkillers for nothing, which blows.

My gums are all swollen around the infected tooth, giving me for the first time in my life that classic cartoony puffy toothache face. Because it’s just on the left side of my face, my wife says I look like “a grizzled dock worker chipmunk, sitting at the bar.”

Pro tip: don’t let your regular dentist do a root canal. Insist on a referral to an endodontist!

Yep, that’s what I’m doing. My dentist, to his credit, said “in my younger days I would’ve just done this myself, because I thought I could do everything. But I have learned that it is better to let specialists do some things.”

I had two root canals, one of which was on a badly infected root. It was an extremely unpleasant experience in my case. A lot of nervy pain, because for some reason the anaesthetic wouldn't properly penetrate the nerve, so, well, anyway, it wasn't great. But the important thing is that I would do it all again, because the pain I was experiencing in the run up to the first root canal was horrendous. I was taking four max-strength ibuprofen tablets just to try to get a couple of hours' sleep at night. I could only eat soft foods and drink tepid drinks on one side of my mouth. So, yes, the two hours in the chair were bad, but they were worth it.

Second root canal was preventative, and it was an absolute breeze in comparison.

thinking about life before modern dentistry is 😬

I got a root canal in Peru in the early 90s. When I came back to the States, the guy who had to extract the tooth asked if he could share my x-rays with his students, to show them what not to do.

yeah i had a root canal done in my hometown in australia when i was a teenager & my dentist in the US said it definitely did the job but the work was more like “field dentistry in a battlefield” than modern dentistry standards lol

Haha, the guy said he'd seen worse, but only from Russia.

thinking about life before modern dentistry is 😬

Had this exact thought the other day when the pain got bad. I guess in the old days they just woulda got some pliers and yanked that sucker out and splashed some whiskey on it or something.

yeah there was a Dollop podcast episode about George Washington’s teeth & it sounded like absolute hell on earth, truly nightmarish - dude had to have been in excruciating pain 24/7

Update: So yeah, the root canal was really not bad. Uncomfortable, obviously, but only a couple of twinges of actual pain during it. And there's been no real pain or soreness from it since. Heading to get the crown today, so that should seal the deal.

In every sense! wtg tipsy

Fair play, well done on getting through it.

The tooth my crown's on, I was told may need root canal eventually if the root dies under the crown. Honestly, cant I just get the tooth extracted instead its just a back tooth, I'm already missing a few thanks to orthodontic work so IDC

I broke one of my heavily filled back teeth two days after Christmas 2023. Finally got the sucker crowned today. What a palaver.

I recently came across a, I think, Tiktok video by someone who went to Mexico for a root canal and crown, and explained the price differences & the experience. Someone else in the comments said that their implants were priced at $30,000 in the US or like $6k in Mexico, which is the procedure I've needed for many years and what's holding me back. Hadn't considered that before but...maybe?

I had an excellent experience with dentistry in Mexico!

did you get any gold fillings quincie?

I now have a 100% overbite and something like 11 undamaged teeth. I will never be able to get them taken care of in my lifetime.

one tooth at a time

After many years of negligence, I've really started staying on it.. bought a Phillips Sonicare electric toothbrush on eBay, and floss once if not twice a day... I have some monster fillings from the 80s and my dentist thinks I should start planning out some crowns over time, but I'm gonna let it ride for now

My Mexican dentistry experience included two root canals (quick, painless), filling repairs, and perfect crowns on my two front teeth. I don’t recall what everything cost, but it was maybe a quarter of what it would have cost in the US. Oh and they offered me valium before the root canals!

brb googling flights to mexico

I don't even have a dentist any more. Although one positive thing about not having a dentist is that I don't fuck about + brush thoroughly two or three times a day, and am doing it like I've just had a lecture from a dental hygienist.

One tooth at a time is still hundreds of dollars at a time, and free clinics don't do the kind of surgery that I'd need.