Saturday is one of the few days I am able to get stuff done. This Saturday was for the dentist.
After having a scary meeting with a dentist (my second in twelve years) in Texas back in 2010, I found a very agreeable dentist right around the corner from us here in Long Beach. What the office in Texas told me would cost in upwards of fifteen grand (!!!!!!)(seriously), the fine crew around the corner did for two-hundred bucks after my new and better insurance picked up their end.
Now I have even newer and even better insurance and, apparently, a continuing and rather personal battle with my own teeth. Did I start smoking crack or letting my life be taken over by meth?
Math maybe, but not meth. Pretty sure anyway.
Somewhere in November or December a filling in my upper left bicuspid, an amalgam deal put in while I was a kid, came out. From then until the end of January I was getting crud stuck into the gaping hole in my tooth. Dental floss was my close homey.
I had the tooth filled and a bunch of coral chiseled off my teeth, and another appointment set for a week later---this past Saturday---to finish the last of the fillings they never got to back at the place around the corner. (This new and better insurance has me driving across town rather than walking down the alley.)
This past Saturday it was dead at the dentist. The previous Saturday it was busy as hell all day, and I waited in one of those chairs for over an hour. They had a television on the wall in the operating nook, which seemed too opulent before I stared at it for an hour.
This past Saturday they found new cavities they needed to fill. That brought my total to either five or six---the details are a bit fuzzy, as I had hands in my face for a full hour and a half.
It turns out the lower jaw is harder to numb than the upper, and it took four shots to numb it just enough that I could handle the drill. That side of my face felt invisible for hours afterwards
After I was all done and ready to get a few X-rays of this most recent work, it turns out they had forgotten a tiny cavity in the front and, hey, since you're already numb, we should just get it done now.
Are my teeth are more filling than tooth at this point?
Welcome!!! I live in the never ending abyss that is dental work. My teeth and gums won't fully be happy until they've all fallen out and are replaced by gleaming false indicators of what was once there.
ReplyDeleteSorry you're having to experience it as well brother, it might be a life long thing or maybe you'll get lucky and can get it sorted.
I need to go to the dentist... but I haven't found one here yet that I can walk in and they put me to sleep work and then release me... as long as I'm out I'm okay... this is the last of the phobia's I simply can't over come....
ReplyDeleteThe dentist stressed that while getting the fillings are lame, and a drag, they seriously beat getting a root canal. I can agree with that. Root canal free and would like to remain so...
ReplyDeleteYa....not root canal free here. Had it, it went bad years later, had gaping hole in molars for a few years, now rocking 3 tooth bride that ate 1/3 of my annual benefits. Rad. Not. Brush and floss kids.
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