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So, I have been to a new dentist, Dr. VanDerHoefe, in walking distance of our new home here in Bellevue. This practice's approach to a cleaning was a bit different from Dr. Mahindra's—among other things, they started by polishing my teeth, and ended with some of the ultrasound thing, rather than vice versa. In between we discussed flossing techniques, and the dentist measured the spaces between my teeth as an indicator of gum health, which was mostly good.
And they took X-rays, because the ones they got from my old dentist's office were somehow in the wrong format (which of course I hadn't noticed, and they hadn't opened the file before my appointment and discovered this); one of those was an X-ray of my head, for jaw shape. The doctor found several small cavities at the edges of my teeth. He said that because of where those cavities are, I will need three crowns: if he just filled those, given the large amounts of silver filling already in the teeth, they'd be unstable and likely to crack "in the long term." (One of them doesn't look good even now.) He couldn't give me an idea of what "the long term" means, whether we're looking at closer to three months, three years, or three decades.
So, I have two appointments for dental work; there will need to be a total of four, but he can reasonably do three top teeth (two crowns, one regular filling) at the same time, and when we finish those do the bottom tooth, rather than have temporary crowns on top and bottom teeth on the same side of my mouth. (I suspect I will be preferentially chewing on the right side even so.) They're going to ask for insurance pre-authorization, but best case is that I'm going to have to pay half; that's assuming I don't use up my coverage for this year, even if I put the second set of appointments off until January, which I don't much like.
And now I'm torn between "yes, do it, they're the only set of teeth I have" and "this seems like a lot all of a sudden." On the other hand, I think Dr. Mahindra said something about a couple of things he was going to just watch for the moment, the last time I saw him. (I'm supposed to schedule the third and fourth appointments after we do the first two; they seem to be pretty busy, so I won't be starting this until the end of August.)
And they took X-rays, because the ones they got from my old dentist's office were somehow in the wrong format (which of course I hadn't noticed, and they hadn't opened the file before my appointment and discovered this); one of those was an X-ray of my head, for jaw shape. The doctor found several small cavities at the edges of my teeth. He said that because of where those cavities are, I will need three crowns: if he just filled those, given the large amounts of silver filling already in the teeth, they'd be unstable and likely to crack "in the long term." (One of them doesn't look good even now.) He couldn't give me an idea of what "the long term" means, whether we're looking at closer to three months, three years, or three decades.
So, I have two appointments for dental work; there will need to be a total of four, but he can reasonably do three top teeth (two crowns, one regular filling) at the same time, and when we finish those do the bottom tooth, rather than have temporary crowns on top and bottom teeth on the same side of my mouth. (I suspect I will be preferentially chewing on the right side even so.) They're going to ask for insurance pre-authorization, but best case is that I'm going to have to pay half; that's assuming I don't use up my coverage for this year, even if I put the second set of appointments off until January, which I don't much like.
And now I'm torn between "yes, do it, they're the only set of teeth I have" and "this seems like a lot all of a sudden." On the other hand, I think Dr. Mahindra said something about a couple of things he was going to just watch for the moment, the last time I saw him. (I'm supposed to schedule the third and fourth appointments after we do the first two; they seem to be pretty busy, so I won't be starting this until the end of August.)
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