Adventures in Dental Land

I've got an owie!  

My adventures into "dental land" have been a long time coming.  

Over 9 years ago I broke my molar on a peppercorn when I bit into a hamburger from Johnny Rockets in Florida (worst state in the union, if you ask me).  

I didn't have dental insurance then, so I never went to get it looked at.  

Before this incident I never really had to worry about my dental work because my wonderful parents always took care of it.  When I was under their roof, I got check ups and cleanings every 6 months like a good girl should.  Funny enough, the week that I was be married, I went in for another routine cleaning and the dentist announced proudly that all 4 of my wisdom teeth were growing in.  What?!  When I told my Mom she said, and I quote, "Hahaha!  Sorry, you're on your own now!"  

Those darn wisdom teeth still remain in my mouth to this day.  

Thanks, Mom!  

Lets get back on track here!  

3 years ago, my chipped molar finally started to cause me pain.  I went to have it looked at and was told that I needed a root canal on my molar AND the tooth in front of it.....immediately.  I drove like a bat out of hell to the oral surgeon, and charged those darn root canals onto my credit card.  Dave Ramsey would not have been proud of me.  A week or so later I returned to the dentist to get a crown put on them.  The dentist told me the price of the crowns and I almost barfed.  

I can not believe how much dental work costs.  I never knew that Dentists can set their own prices and some of them try to rip you off.  

I can only hope that the dentist that I saw for years and years when I was a kid did not try and rip off my parents too.  Believe you me, they had to pay for way too many cavity fillings and crowns for my ol mouth.  What can I say?  I was obsessed with bubble gum.  Mmmmmm bubble gum!  

So, of course, I didn't get those expensive crowns put on because I couldn't afford it.  I went on my marry way and decided to wait it out.  

Fast forward to last month.  

My molar has been chipping away and falling apart for a few months now.  Last month a HUGE chunk of it came off, and I was left with a stabby little toothy in my mouth.  I kept stabbing my tongue and cheek whenever I would eat, or breathe for that matter.  

Luckily, we have insurance this time.  Horray!  

I went to the dentist who was assigned to us by my husband's employer.  They wanted to charge me a barfarific amount too.  Thanks to a few friends of mine, I got a second and a third opinion.  Third time was a charm.  They charged me literally half of what the first dentist was going to charge me.  

Last week, I went to the dentist of my choice (the cheaper dude of course) to have my dental work done.  

They numbed me up and I patiently sat there thinking about how grateful that I was that this junk was finally getting taken care of.  

The Dentist came in and proceeded to do what he does.  I knew that he was going to extract two of my teeth and then put in a bridge.  My mouth was completely numb, so I had no idea what he was doing in there.  He was drilling and drilling and drilling.  When he was done with that, I said, "Okay!  So we're done?  You got the teeth out, right?"  Wrong!  He said that he was just prepping my front and back tooth for the bridge and that he was now going to extract the two bad teeth.  Let me tell you something, extractions are NOT fun.  He was pulling and pulling aaaannnd pulling.  I could hear him grunting and he kept having to stop and drill at my teeth some more.  He also kept grabbing paper towels to wipe the sweat off of his brow.  Seriously?  Then he pulled and pulled some more.  I was so tense that I almost had an anxiety attack.  

Normally, I am not a wuss when it comes to dental work.  I was laughing with the oral surgeon during my root canal for pete's sake!  I don't know why this time was so intense, but it was.  I never want to have teeth pulled again.  Ever!  Ever!  Ever!  I've learned my lesson on this one, that's for sure.

I went back today to have the dentist fit me for a permanent bridge.  He, without numbing me, pulled off my temporary bridge and then proceeded to scrap at my very sore gums.  After the third time that I yelled, "Ouch!" I said, "You've got to be kidding me!  Stop it!"  Thankfully, he was done with scrapping my gums and then took an impression of the hole in my mouth for my bridge.  

Whew!  

It's over with for now.  

My hubby said that I need to demand to be numbed when I go in to have the permanent bridge put on.  I'm also thinking about requesting the gas.  The last time that I had "the gas" I hallucinated rainbows dancing around the dental hygienist's head.  I might have laughed and pointed at them at some point, but that's between me and the dental hygienist.

This might have been what I looked like last week