"Well, it's still broken," my dentist says to me, as he walks into the room.

I snort. "Here I was thinking it would grow back."

"Not much I can do," he muses, looking at the x-ray. "I'll refer you to a specialist - it's clearly bone impacted, so they'll have to take it out for you."

Joy.

Welcome back to more Tales From The Dentist's Chair.

As these things always seem to with me, this little crisis happened while I had no dental coverage. Where I work, benefits don't kick in for six months after you're hired, so a month after I started (of course) I started feeling some discomfort in my lower right wisdom tooth.

I had the uppers removed years ago when the gums around them got infected. The lowers haven't given me much trouble until now.

The pain came and went in small waves until right around Christmas, when, while watching the Return of the King (Special Edition), a chunk of tooth popped right out while I was picking at a bit of stuck food with a toothpick.

Huh.

A visit to the dentist showed my tooth was rotting away happily. The dentist could have filled it, but it's a wisdom tooth. Better to just get rid of it.

So he stuck a temporary filling in (for free, since I still wasn't covered - I have the world's coolest dentist) and off I went.

It took a couple weeks for the pain to settle down, but since then I've been managing it fairly well with Advil and Tylenol (alternating them, to spread out the dosages).

Tuesday, they stopped working. Even while taking the maximum recommended dosage of each during the day, the pain never entirely went away. And there was one month left until my coverage started.

So it was back to the dentist.

"I'll give you a prescription for the infection," he says. "That should stop the pain. Just go to the specialist as soon as you can."

Specialists. Great. First I have to have a consultation, and then the actual extraction, which they can't schedule until after the consultation. Plus I have to wait for the insurance company to approve the estimate (and wrangle things so that they don't classify the problem as a 'pre-existing condition' and choose not to cover it). With all that, and factoring in healing time, it's unlikely I'll be able to get the tooth removed until after the honeymoon.

The fact that I have to set aside over a thousand bucks for the procedure is an entirely different matter. The insurance company will reimburse me, sure, but I have to find the money in the first place. And no, the specialist won't bill the insurance company directly.

Sigh.

As the dentist wrote my prescription, I glanced at the wall of photos. Every shot a smiling child who had just been told 'no cavities'.

I've never been on that wall. I don't think I will ever be.

My mouth is filled with metal and ceramic. I have two bridges and have had a total of five root canals. Four teeth extracted with another two to go in the near future.

The whole thought left me feeling depressed and miserable.

Then, when I got back to work, I read the journal of my friend Lacy, who had just been told that she has an unidentified dark mass in her pelvic area. They don't know if it is cancerous or not, but it is aggressive and it is very large. She's justifiably worried.

Puts my little teeth problems into perspective, that's for sure.

So don't worry about me, folks. Send your good mojo and prayers Lacy's way.

That's what I'm doing.

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» Tooth and Consequences from 8-Track Mind
Well, the new one's up. Sorry it's late, but yesterday was a painful day. Read up for details.... [Read More]

Tracked on March 3, 2005 09:53 AM