A Tooth Story
Yesterday morning I went to the dentist for a 1st of many visits. I went to the dentist in April after getting dental insurance because my teeth needed a lot of work and I didn't want to lose my teeth. So the dentist does a full exam and tells me everything I need. They print it out and even gave me a discount on onlays, because I need a lot of them. Cost to restore my mouth is $6000 (EDIT: this is the price after insurance).
Yesterday morning I went to get my two most urgent teeth taken care of. What was put down for 2 hours turned into 4.5. One of the onlays wound up being a partial crown because the dentist found a pocket of decay that wasn't on the x-rays. He was great though and the price didn't change. The office has an onsite CAD/CAM machine. They scan your tooth and your pemenant crown/onlay is done at the office that day. My gums kept spilling out blood and fluid, so they kept having to redo prep for scanning the tooth. The machine that did the milling was pretty cool, I got to see it make my onlay for a few seconds: http://yfrog.com/j4qlm7j
The dentist and his assistant were really nice and they kept trying to convince me to be a dentist. I didn't say what I used to do in the past, I just told them I had a good memory. After I got over the initial hump of the injections in 2 nerves on each side of my mouth (those hurt, and lidocaine stings), it wasn't so bad. They kept giving me injections until the end, then I just endured because injections would of been more painful. I counted 12 injections. Opposite sides of my lower jaw, tooths 18 and 31, there were 4 initially then they just kept coming. Good news is just a partial crown and a large onlay, no root canal! Yippie!! Bad news is my jaw is pretty sore from it being open for 4 hours. They also had to go under my gums pretty far for these two teeth.
At any rate, back next month for the next two teeth. Then another visit for a a deep cleaning (root scaling/planing), Then more teeth taken care of, then all my old fillings need to be replaced. Will take another 5-6 visits for every thing, yikes.
Yesterday morning I went to get my two most urgent teeth taken care of. What was put down for 2 hours turned into 4.5. One of the onlays wound up being a partial crown because the dentist found a pocket of decay that wasn't on the x-rays. He was great though and the price didn't change. The office has an onsite CAD/CAM machine. They scan your tooth and your pemenant crown/onlay is done at the office that day. My gums kept spilling out blood and fluid, so they kept having to redo prep for scanning the tooth. The machine that did the milling was pretty cool, I got to see it make my onlay for a few seconds: http://yfrog.com/j4qlm7j
The dentist and his assistant were really nice and they kept trying to convince me to be a dentist. I didn't say what I used to do in the past, I just told them I had a good memory. After I got over the initial hump of the injections in 2 nerves on each side of my mouth (those hurt, and lidocaine stings), it wasn't so bad. They kept giving me injections until the end, then I just endured because injections would of been more painful. I counted 12 injections. Opposite sides of my lower jaw, tooths 18 and 31, there were 4 initially then they just kept coming. Good news is just a partial crown and a large onlay, no root canal! Yippie!! Bad news is my jaw is pretty sore from it being open for 4 hours. They also had to go under my gums pretty far for these two teeth.
At any rate, back next month for the next two teeth. Then another visit for a a deep cleaning (root scaling/planing), Then more teeth taken care of, then all my old fillings need to be replaced. Will take another 5-6 visits for every thing, yikes.