It's All About Teeth, Teeth, Teeth

[shake_the_stars]

I went to the dentist today. Due to first a long spell of no insurance, and then a spell of bad insurance that did not cover a dental visit (and the fact that when you have to work shitty retail due to the economy, $80 out of pocket is like a ten-hour shift at your shitty job), I hadn't been in a couple of years

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[shake_the_stars]

The blessing is that I felt nothing. When my upper wisdom tooth broke, I was all like, "...did my tooth just break? D: I didn't feel a thing." No wonder--it was hollow. There was nothing left in it to be felt.

They're starting to move to the hands-off plan over here, but my dentist is fairly old-school and we talked about removing them in 2006. (No, actually, he talked about removing them, and I said I wasn't going to have it done because at the time, I had no insurance and I certainly didn't have $2000-$3000 to spend on what would have been unnecessary surgery, as both teeth were intact then.)

The lower one on my right side hasn't even erupted yet. I am rather abnormal why not :D

Over here, wisdom teeth are extracted by oral surgeons rather than dentists, especially because impaction in bone is often involved; there's some overlap involved, but very few people are qualified as both. (Can you imagine the medical/dental school debt? XD) General anaesthesia is a big deal here, or should be, but I was perusing oral surgeons' websites last night and a lot of them prominently advertised it; I suspect this is market-driven rather than otherwise XD

It probably won't be so horrible once I'm in the thick of things, but unfamiliar experiences tend to make my imagination run wild. XD