Regular preventative dental care= good. Free (or small copays).
Smelling burning metal from your own mouth= bad. (When they have to drill out a huge silver filling to get to the cavity hiding underneath)
Smelling the same acrylic used in fake nails, being put into your mouth= bad.
Getting 3 fillings and a crown = bad. (Especially when one of the fillings is almost a root canal!!)
Spending hundreds of dollars on fillings and a crown= bad.
Class, what have we learned?
1. Floss daily. Really. My grandma always said, "Be true to your teeth or they'll be false to you." Several dentists have essentially told me, "If you want to keep your real teeth, floss."
2. If you have teeth problems, go fix them NOW. No, not next month, NOW. Do not put it off! Not even if your insurance switches and your favorite dentist (what an oxymoron, to put 'favorite' and 'dentist' in the same sentence!) doesn't take your new insurance for a year.
A procrastinated cavity can need a crown instead of a filling. A tooth needing a crown can turn into a root canal. A root canal untreated will result in DEAD TEETH, folks. You'll end up with partial dentures. It's just not worth it. Who cares that it hurts and it's uncomfortable to take care of dental issues. It's better than the alternative of letting the teeth go untreated. *shudder*
3. My dentist also constantly says, "If you take care of your teeth, you get to see less of me. It's a win-win!"
Daily Gratitudes:
1. Dentists. Think about our ancestors and tooth aches and lost teeth. It makes me want to moan in pain just thinking about it. I mean, just remember Tom Hanks in Castaway, having to knock out his own tooth. Blegh.
2. Insurance. At least it helps cover some costs. In my case, preventative maintenance is FREE, but basic and serious dental work is 60% and 40% covered, so my crown was NOT cheap. But at least I didn't have to pay 100%.
3. Flexible people. Both my chiropractor and Jeffrey's piano teacher were willing to change appt. times for me when I remembered my kids have minimum days this week due to parent-teacher conferences. And my visiting teacher stepped in at the last second to watch all 3 of my children for TWO hours while I was at the dentist. AND, my kids' principal happened to have a quick opening for me this morning instead of Thursday, very kind.
Monday, March 16, 2009
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10 comments:
I'm so sorry, Sweetheart, that you have had to go through all of that discomfort. I maintain that tooth and ear pain are the worst. At least with labor pain, there will be eventual relief soon. (Well, relatively soon.) You have a beautiful smile!
Tell me about it! Wow, tooth pain is awful! Watch that tooth that was almost a root canal. Mine ended up dying anyway. Can I tell you...OW!
Aww. Thank you mommy.
And Kristy, SCARY! So you lost your tooth? Or have to have it pulled?
Ick! Okay. I'll go. First thing tomorrow morning. Well maybe second thing, how's 8:10?
(yes I have an appointment anyway, but your blog timing was perfect)
We love you! Sorry you had to see the dentist
Thanks for putting it in perspective. Yes, I agree that spending the money hurts, but I'd much rather spend it than have a member of our family go through severe tooth pain and tooth loss.
We'll be okay.
Wow! I REALLY need to schedule that dentist appt. I feel for you, I really do. After cavities, crowns, root canals, etc. I would definitely agree that prevention is the best route hands down.
And since then I've been back to the dentist twice (not counting when I'll go back next week for my permanent crown) for the boys.
Bryce had 6 fillings. Ouch. Their cleaning was on Tuesday, and on Thursday Bryce got his fillings done, and some sealants. Jeffrey also got some sealants done.
And I spent hundreds of dollars again. Grumble, grumble!
Ooh, I'm sorry. I had a really deep cavity once that was almost a root canal and the pain afterward was the most excruciating pain I've ever experienced. I couldn't talk or think. I kept praying to God to kill me.
You?
Yeah, Natasha, I thought my almost-root canal was pretty bad, but not as bad as you described. But now I wrote a post today about having the flu AND Strep at the same time. That has been so bad, I've really been asking Rob how Job ever did it. He endured WAY more than this. Geez.
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