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my teeth fall out of my fucking head?
Mission for the moment: Find out if dentist is overly pessimistic (he's new to me) or if this is real. I have phenomenally bad teeth and he's all "Yeah, you're going to start losing your teeth in a couple of years. If you brush and floss and make it your new religion, maybe five, maybe ten. But someday you're going to get a cavity we can't fix, given how crowded your mouth is and then you're going to start losing your teeth."
Bear in mind, ladies and gentlemen, that this is a diagnosis made after I have TWO cavities (and one totally-eaten-by-weevils-tooth-that-needs-a-crown) after SIX years without dental care. This is relevant because after the time I didn't have an appointment for a year and a half and I had a cavity for every month that I missed (so, eighteen) no one suggested this then.
Sooo...either
a) my dentist is a paranoiac and playing cover-your-ass-fu
or
b) I will be adjusting my dentures in my fucking head from the age of thirty two onward. Thirty-two - a magical number in dental establishments. NOT THAT I HAVE THIRTY TWO TEETH ANY LONGER. I think I have twenty eight. Maybe twenty seven.
And this has never, ever, ever come up before in my life within my hearing. See, if you have teeth like me, you either pay attention to what is said around you or you wind up with someone doing a totally unnecessary root canal. Seriously. So I can, despite having a memory like a sieve in other instances, remember the precise dentist who first mentioned this oral surgery (rejected because strangely, I don't WANT to have both my jaws broken, my palate dropped, and HUGE ledges of bone sawed off even if I AM under anaesthetic - call me crazy), which was Dr Peter Shapiro, a very nice and extremely tiny man, whose equally-tiny wife was my allergist in related matters and who was never actually bitten by me, and his office was up near Children's Hospital and it was on the fourth floor and I REMEMBER these things, you see. I can remember all of my dentists, most of the fights, most of the treatment plans (at least, beyond "And this week we want you to hold your toothbrush at an angle when you brush, but don't get too attached because upcoming research will indicate that you should be rotating it in small circles, and by the way we're going to try to get you to buy a HUNDRED DOLLAR toothbrush for the rest of your natural life and we'll give you a new reason for it every single time and it won't ever be something simple like "We're getting a kickback from sonicare." or anything that makes sense at all."). I know which dentists I bit, which ones I didn't, which one I threatened with grievous bodily harm if he came at me with a needle full of Novocaine like that again, and all of it.
And nowhere in there was "even if you brush your teeth religiously and floss them often and well and adapt your life to accomodate your teeth totally you'll STILL lose them." Because if someone had said THAT, I would have just had them yanked-the-fuck-out at the age of twenty and spent the rest of my life, as someone I know does, pretending my dentures were REAL.
Seriously. I am feeling that I am wasting my time by brushing my teeth now, and I've only been out of this appointment for four hours. There's nothing like telling someone that what they're doing is going to have no effect at all to keep them doing it.
I want a second opinion, but I want to be able to trust my damn dentist for ten minutes, too.
Maybe I should bite him next week. During the consultation when he'll presumably outline the total-plan-of-disaster for my mouth. I should look for the disaster film crews hiding in the fish tank next week, shouldn't I.
FOUR APPOINTMENTS ALREADY AND WE'RE NOT EVEN ONTO THE MATTER OF WHETHER OR NOT I NEED A ROOT CANAL FOR THIS DAMN CROWN. AND I need to figure out how to pay for THAT with my student loans coming due and I said - for whatever INSANE reason - that I'd buy my dad a GUN for his birthday - a gun that costs like a thousand dollars! Granted, my brother's going in on it, but I don't have this sort of money when I have student loans!
And all I can think of is that you know, I got off real light on the student loan front. And apparently light on the teeth, too.
Mission for the moment: Find out if dentist is overly pessimistic (he's new to me) or if this is real. I have phenomenally bad teeth and he's all "Yeah, you're going to start losing your teeth in a couple of years. If you brush and floss and make it your new religion, maybe five, maybe ten. But someday you're going to get a cavity we can't fix, given how crowded your mouth is and then you're going to start losing your teeth."
Bear in mind, ladies and gentlemen, that this is a diagnosis made after I have TWO cavities (and one totally-eaten-by-weevils-tooth-that-needs-a-crown) after SIX years without dental care. This is relevant because after the time I didn't have an appointment for a year and a half and I had a cavity for every month that I missed (so, eighteen) no one suggested this then.
Sooo...either
a) my dentist is a paranoiac and playing cover-your-ass-fu
or
b) I will be adjusting my dentures in my fucking head from the age of thirty two onward. Thirty-two - a magical number in dental establishments. NOT THAT I HAVE THIRTY TWO TEETH ANY LONGER. I think I have twenty eight. Maybe twenty seven.
And this has never, ever, ever come up before in my life within my hearing. See, if you have teeth like me, you either pay attention to what is said around you or you wind up with someone doing a totally unnecessary root canal. Seriously. So I can, despite having a memory like a sieve in other instances, remember the precise dentist who first mentioned this oral surgery (rejected because strangely, I don't WANT to have both my jaws broken, my palate dropped, and HUGE ledges of bone sawed off even if I AM under anaesthetic - call me crazy), which was Dr Peter Shapiro, a very nice and extremely tiny man, whose equally-tiny wife was my allergist in related matters and who was never actually bitten by me, and his office was up near Children's Hospital and it was on the fourth floor and I REMEMBER these things, you see. I can remember all of my dentists, most of the fights, most of the treatment plans (at least, beyond "And this week we want you to hold your toothbrush at an angle when you brush, but don't get too attached because upcoming research will indicate that you should be rotating it in small circles, and by the way we're going to try to get you to buy a HUNDRED DOLLAR toothbrush for the rest of your natural life and we'll give you a new reason for it every single time and it won't ever be something simple like "We're getting a kickback from sonicare." or anything that makes sense at all."). I know which dentists I bit, which ones I didn't, which one I threatened with grievous bodily harm if he came at me with a needle full of Novocaine like that again, and all of it.
And nowhere in there was "even if you brush your teeth religiously and floss them often and well and adapt your life to accomodate your teeth totally you'll STILL lose them." Because if someone had said THAT, I would have just had them yanked-the-fuck-out at the age of twenty and spent the rest of my life, as someone I know does, pretending my dentures were REAL.
Seriously. I am feeling that I am wasting my time by brushing my teeth now, and I've only been out of this appointment for four hours. There's nothing like telling someone that what they're doing is going to have no effect at all to keep them doing it.
I want a second opinion, but I want to be able to trust my damn dentist for ten minutes, too.
Maybe I should bite him next week. During the consultation when he'll presumably outline the total-plan-of-disaster for my mouth. I should look for the disaster film crews hiding in the fish tank next week, shouldn't I.
FOUR APPOINTMENTS ALREADY AND WE'RE NOT EVEN ONTO THE MATTER OF WHETHER OR NOT I NEED A ROOT CANAL FOR THIS DAMN CROWN. AND I need to figure out how to pay for THAT with my student loans coming due and I said - for whatever INSANE reason - that I'd buy my dad a GUN for his birthday - a gun that costs like a thousand dollars! Granted, my brother's going in on it, but I don't have this sort of money when I have student loans!
And all I can think of is that you know, I got off real light on the student loan front. And apparently light on the teeth, too.
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From:
no subject
Definitely go for the second opinion. I've had enough dental work done to know that some people are just ridiculous - and oral surgery is... ugh. Awful. I was eating pudding and jello for like. A month when I had my wisdom teeth out. Eck. *hugs* And I'm sorry your dentist is stupid and doesn't cover everything in one consultation. That's silly.
<3
Cai
From:
no subject
The more I think about it, the more I realise that, you know, this isn't exactly like all of my teeth are going to fall out. I'm actually thinking - this is bad - that I'll wait until the first one goes and THEN I'll decide what to do. It's not happening tomorrow, I don't WANT oral surgery, and it might never happen.
*pollyannas along*