dentists

Consequently it is ten years before my next check up.

And Anthony, if you have toothache, it's probably time to go. Be brave, good luck!

Orthodontists are on a whole new level of evil. Say, the dentists would be a bumbling house burglar as opposed to the sinister, wicked, long term wretchedness of the Nightmare Nick stylee orthodontist. WITH HIS BRACES! You bastard!!

I of course ruined my teeth by being so pleased to get my braces off and pissed off when I got a damn retainer that I never wore it. Orthodontist was not at all pleased with me. BECAUSE I THWARTED HIM! Although, I bet I would have great teeth now if I had just put it back in after that damn presentation they made us do @ school JUST AFTER I came back from yr orthodontist.

Anyway, you go to dentists when yr little and you get stickers. Lot more fun. And I had good teeth as a nipper so no traumatic experiences. I was knocked out with sleeping gas too! It made me feel WRETCHED when I woke up. Ah, childhood memories of puking on the roadside by a Little Chef.

I've not got any fillings or anything, they're clean but uneven. So the dentist got bored and decided to de-wonk them: I had a brace for 3 years and now, 13 years later, my teeth are exactly where they were before the brace happened, they just slowly moved back. I know, I found the original plastercast last year. I once bit a dentist and drew blood (by mistake).

It's been about a year and a half since I last went and I really should go, but I will probably end up like anthony and only go when I end up in pain and absolutely have to.

Can you still get gas when you want a tooth out? That stuff had such a unique smell - can still bring it to mind now - although for some strange reason I always used to wake up in tears.

i'm going to the dentist next week and boy am i glad because i have some kind of swollen root that's almost poking out of my gum. it hurts to the touch and sometimes bleeds. :-(

I once went to a practice run by Doctor Fr33lov3 and Doctor C0cksh0t, with a phone number ending in 6969. I was never offered extras.

dentists are sadistic fuckers. they are crazy, all of them. no normal person would want to make their living by drilling poeoples teeth.

it's more long, arduous, and costly than painful.

Also, ignore half of what I said if you don't have any sort of insurance, I'm a privileged fucker that way.

a good dentist should not allow you to feel any pain

i like my dentist a lot, but since i'm moving i'll have to find a new one.

when I had braces, the orthodontist's breath stank every fucking time I went in, the day I got them off I said he should consider eating mints before seeing patients, he was like the worst matey Uncle on the planet, "OH YOU ARE A LIVE ONE" etc.

I ended up needing one filling and a root canal on the broken tooth. The dentist was a little confused as to why I didn't come in to get it fixed sooner, he didn't seem to understand the "it didn't hurt so why fix it" or "I don't have any insurance" excuses. He kept telling me that it was close to cracking down to the pulp and causing me extreme amounts of pain.

The root canal was actually more interesting than painful. They novocaine the shit out of you, prop open your mouth, and then drill out the tooth before scraping the hollow roots out with tiny wire scrapers. He filled the holes with antiseptic, put a temporary filling in, and sent me home for a week. When I went back he filled the roots with rubber and put a more permanent filling over the whole deal. He wants me to get a gold cap but understands that I have to wait for until I get a job with insurance (which should happen for me or my wife in the next year). That's also when he says I must get my wisdom teeth removed, but they can wait a while.

All in all, my mouth feels a lot better, I no longer have a fucked up busted tooth, and it didn't hurt at all thanks to the drugs and whatnot. The downside is that this cost me like $1000 that I would have rather spent on other things.

My insurance money ran out, too, so now I'm looking at some 200 bucks per cavity. Part of me wishes she were unscrupulous and lying, but she's this sweet mild-mannered lady and admittedly my teeth have a history of being shit.

xpost

Guess how many cavities I have? No, guess. No, really. Guess.

I need to find a different one though. This lady:
a) used the word "poop" or some derivation of it at least 5 times in explaining cavities to me, even though I am basically an expert in having cavities (my whole mouth is basically silver at this point)
b) talked the ENTIRE time, a million words a minute, about all her relatives, occasionally asking me questions, while I had all this stuff in my mouth, including her fingers
c) explained my insurance will only cover less than half of my fillings, so I'll need to pay $1000 out of pocket plus the difference between the white and normal/insurance-covered fillings out of pocket
d) pressured me really hard to get INVISALIGN braces, to the point that I felt like I was being tortured AND getting a sales pitch at the same time

Quick question:
Have you heard that these fancy schmancy non-insurance-covered white fillings are not as good as the old dark kind?

what do i win?

Just kidding.

Yeah, 13. Unlucky.

I think the early technology (1970's) of the composite fillings was not good, but the current ones are a better alternative to silver.

I'm sure you can find lots of different opinions. One of my crazy old relatives waged a full-out public campaign against the amalgam (metal) fillings because she was convinced the mercury content was giving her all kinds of symptoms, even though I don't think anything has ever been proven...but I wouldn't bet any money on her being wrong, I mean, who WANTS mercury in her mouth?? Anyway, several of my old silver ones ended up breaking or coming loose in college, and I lost teeth because of it...but then I didn't have them fixed for ages and ages.

PS: I've never had my "white" fillings NOT be covered by insurance -- would your coverage be any different at another practice? Is yr current doc "in" your insurance plan?

I don't know about listening to me, honestly. I've spent the last 4 days trying to cook eggs, unsuccessfully. My confidence is low.

The one caveat the dentist gave on the white fillings - alcohol will degrade them, so if you drink spirits on a nightly basis they won't last as long as a silver one.

The white fillings aren't covered by my insurance as they are considered cosmetic, as Jaq's, so I'd have to pay the difference if I got white fillings no matter where I went. However, this particular dentist ONLY does white fillings, so I wouldn't have a choice with her.

What I've heard is that since the fillings are white, it's harder for dentists to see whether or not they have completely sealed them, which can allow for air to get in. Also, I've heard they don't last as long as the old school fillings.

also, i recently got a root canal and it was the least painful procedure i've ever had, holy crap was i impressed...

AND, no sure if this is common knowledge, but everyone should check out

http://www.doctoroogle.com/dentist_recommendations.cfm

i think it's only US though... sorry other contries :(

I don't like being pitched on tooth whitening every time I go in though. Now that I'm compliant with the flossing (got a water flosser, so much better than string), the hygienist doesn't have much else to harp on me about. I went once to a self-proclaimed "cosmetic" dentist in Phoenix who went on and on about how I needed my front teeth capped to get rid of "that gap". (There is no discernable gap.) Some scams are easy to intuit, but boy do they play on esteem.

I hadn't heard about gaps in the white fillings - the stuff is a two-part paste that they sort of overfill the space with after prepping it with the stuff that makes it bond. Then they ultraviolet it (or blue laser or something high tech like that) and then shape it to match your bite.

all told -- i felt less pain in my mouth than in my wallet (all this shit cost $300 in copays, thank GOD that i have dental insurance)!

Bridge work: not as simple as advertised. I've been in the chair twice so far, 2-3 hours each time, with a third visit still to come. The temporary crown fell off after the first visit, which required a trip uptown while my regular guy was on vacation, then that fell out, which required another hour-long visit. And today, the recommendation for a preemptive root canal, before the permanent bridge goes in, on a tooth that is very sensitive. Which I'll reluctantly go ahead with.

It's ruining my whole summer.

jeez, good luck clem

:(

Appreciate that. I don't want to overdramatize--it's not wisdom teeth or anything, and I get good coverage. It's just the timing that's a drag, and that it's stretching out.