I basically spent this afternoon at the dentist; the appointment had been scheduled for 2.5 hours, and actually ran just over three, because the dentist had to take a longer-than-dentally-necessary break to handle someone else's emergency. I've been the emergency patient, and with a dental appointment scheduled from 2:00-4:30 I wasn't going to plan anything specific afterwards.
The dentist is quite good at handling the anesthesia: I have had flu shots that hurt more than the lidocaine needle. On the other hand, putting on the latex dam to catch the remnants of an old amalgam filling he was removing didn't go well; three attempts, and then they anchored it to one of the teeth actually being worked on, instead of the adjacent wisdom tooth.
I have been measured and prepared for two crowns (and have a pair of temporary crowns on those teeth), and had a cavity filled on the tooth next to those. I go back two weeks from Wednesday; in the meantime, I should chew just about everything on the other side of my mouth, and not floss that quadrant. I don't have to avoid any foods, though, so that's okay: chewing on the left is not a problem, but no bagels for 16 days would be.
The dentist told me that it was a good thing we were doing this now, because there was more cracking in the tooth (or maybe teeth?) he was fixing than he'd expected from the previous visit. (At the beginning of all this, he told me that we needed to do one tooth—which I took care of before I went to see![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
adrian_turtle in October—right away, but that these could wait until the new year, if I wanted to charge as much as possible to my dental insurance and minimize my own expense, but I said to go ahead with it now, since we can afford it.
The single most annoying bit of the whole process was an unusually uncomfortable X-ray, to get a thorough picture of the roots, which the dental assistant said was needed "for insurance purposes." I wouldn't have been so annoyed if the dentist had needed it, though an actual medical reason wouldn't have made it any more comfortable. [I paid half the estimated cost of this work this afternoon; given calendar-year maximum payouts, I expect a bill for another few hundred dollars. Noting this here mostly for my reference; I realize most people don't have even this level of dental insurance.]
It took several hours for the anesthesia to wear off, which made my late-afternoon cup of tea trickier than it otherwise would have been. If I understand correctly, I won't need any anesthetic for the second appointment, when they put in the permanent crowns.
The dentist is quite good at handling the anesthesia: I have had flu shots that hurt more than the lidocaine needle. On the other hand, putting on the latex dam to catch the remnants of an old amalgam filling he was removing didn't go well; three attempts, and then they anchored it to one of the teeth actually being worked on, instead of the adjacent wisdom tooth.
I have been measured and prepared for two crowns (and have a pair of temporary crowns on those teeth), and had a cavity filled on the tooth next to those. I go back two weeks from Wednesday; in the meantime, I should chew just about everything on the other side of my mouth, and not floss that quadrant. I don't have to avoid any foods, though, so that's okay: chewing on the left is not a problem, but no bagels for 16 days would be.
The dentist told me that it was a good thing we were doing this now, because there was more cracking in the tooth (or maybe teeth?) he was fixing than he'd expected from the previous visit. (At the beginning of all this, he told me that we needed to do one tooth—which I took care of before I went to see
adrian_turtle in October—right away, but that these could wait until the new year, if I wanted to charge as much as possible to my dental insurance and minimize my own expense, but I said to go ahead with it now, since we can afford it. The single most annoying bit of the whole process was an unusually uncomfortable X-ray, to get a thorough picture of the roots, which the dental assistant said was needed "for insurance purposes." I wouldn't have been so annoyed if the dentist had needed it, though an actual medical reason wouldn't have made it any more comfortable. [I paid half the estimated cost of this work this afternoon; given calendar-year maximum payouts, I expect a bill for another few hundred dollars. Noting this here mostly for my reference; I realize most people don't have even this level of dental insurance.]
It took several hours for the anesthesia to wear off, which made my late-afternoon cup of tea trickier than it otherwise would have been. If I understand correctly, I won't need any anesthetic for the second appointment, when they put in the permanent crowns.
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