Of the 11 cavities I walked into the office with, seven have now been conquered. I still have three that need to be pulled, and four on the bottom right that need to be drilled and filled.
One might beg the question, just how did I let my mouth get so bad? The answer is quite simple in it's complexity. For the first, up until now I have hated dentists with every fibre of my being. The hurt, the drill scared me, and they weren't all nice. Second, after dealing with Dr. Peterson and Tarab with my childhood and four years in braces I didn't want anyone in my mouth like that ever again.
Third, when you are a military spouse, Tricare (or whatever the hell it's called now) doesn't give a rats ass about your teeth. They care about the servicemembers teeth and if you complain loud enough they might pretend to care about your teeth but they really don't. They will send you somewhere to find out about the pain in your mouth but they won't pay for them to fix it. At least not enough. As a military spouse, I had two root canals done on the same tooth (Which I STILL find superfluous because I thought the point of the first one was to take out all of the roots. What they hell was left to hurt?) They covered a good bit of the root canal so that the out of pocket wasn't too bad. But they will not pay for any of the crown. Without the crown there is no point to the root canal because all of the work that caused all of the pain then goes to hell. I learned this the hard way. In the end I was left with a shell of a tooth that broke and caused pain to the point of me getting a bottle of grey goose and a pair of pliers and solving my problem all by my lonesome one night. Was it the sanitary or sane thing to do? Hell no but it stopped the pain and the bottle of vodka was way less expensive than another dentists visit.
Fourth and probably the biggest reason why I haven't been to the dentist in quite awhile, is in New Jersey, when you are on Medicaid, the only way for you to see a dentists as an adult is to have gotten your medicaid while you were pregnant. I wasn't pregnant when I got my medicaid so I could not see a dentist. It didn't really bother me so I didn't pursue trying to see one. When I got down here to Charlotte, I assumed it was the same way. When my mouth began to give me real grief, I asked my regular doctor if there was anything she could do because someone on Facebook told me that in extreme cases, your doctor can pull a tooth or have it pulled if needed. My doctor looked at me and asked me why I didn't go to the dentist with the pain and when I told her I didn't know I could, she just stared at me. What kind of state won't allow adults to see a dentist? It made about as much sense to her as it did to me.
So when I found that I could see a dentist here I was not thrilled because I knew that I wouldn't be able to go in say this tooth hurts can you pull it and be done. NO they wanted to do check ups and cleanings and x-rays which led to 11 cavities that needed to be filled and three that needed to be pulled and a partial that needed to be ordered.
I'm not going to lie and say I wasn't scared out of my mind at the first appointment but they saw that and they worked with me. I had a few requests. Don't walk me through it. I don't care, I don't want to know, just do it. Second numb me with everything you got. Third let me listen to my music. They've accommodated on all fronts with that. I'm comfortable, it doesn't hurt and I can tune everyone out with my music and it's all good.
I may not ever skip, hop, and jump to the dentists office anytime in my life but as long as I have Dr. Marti at Dentistry of the Carolinas, I won't run away either.
The stuff from the needle is beginning to wear off and the tramadol I took before hand to cope with cramps and the after effects of the drill is not playing nice with the rest of the novacaine. I'm going to go lay down before I fall out of my chair. I bet you that as soon as I lay down the freaking plumber is going to get here. That is how my life is. Talk to you later bloggers.
Stay frosty...
