"Hopitus2" wrote in message ...
I've actually had more to do with my dentist than my docs in the long haul.
Your dentist is used to patients going into "sticker shock" at the prices
for his expertise on your mouth/smile problems, and they like to prepare
you, sort of. At least that's what mine means when he goes into that
"estimate" mode with me.
No matter what kind of dental insurance you got, they all have their limits
per year, and my dentist and I just go at it one tooth at a time - me paying
my share (co-payment) one batch at a time till everything's done. Last time
this took from early June to mid-Nov. but it was a bunch of root canals,
visits to an oral surgeon at another office, and rather large bridges at the
last. I did lose some teeth during all that, which were unsalvageable.
Invisible, though.
Unpleasant I call it; the length of time it took, the expense (he is much
cheaper, truly, than one of my best friends' (the condo-Himmie chick)
dentist, because she is cowardly and insists on having some kind of gas that
makes her drunk during the work. I've never done that; I'm not very low pain
threshhold and am basically too cheap as well.
My advice is prepare for $ shock (I prefer to section it into increments)
for dentist's work on you, and just make up your mind to tough it out for
the long haul. Best wishes.



Heh. I *am* toughing it out for the long haul; however, there would
be no "toughing" involved if I had dental insurance. We have health,
auto, life, and malpractice insurance, but dental is prohibitively
expensive for something that's more *optional* than the first four.

I will have to go to an oral surgeon for the extractions, as the roots
grow into my sinuses. Bummer. But that's going to wait; there are
several teeth that *right now* can still be filled, and won't need
root canals if we do them fast enough. I told my dentist I'd rather
start working on the teeth that would be staying, rather than have the
extractions first, and he agreed that we could do it that way.

I've discovered I've become more of a wimp about dental pain as I've
gotten older. I used to get fillings without novocain, if the cavity
wasn't too deep, because though it could hurt **bad** for a minute, it
only lasted that minute, and then you didn't talk funny and drool for
hours afterwards. Nowadays, though, I wouldn't want to do that. I
want my novocain, please. But I can skip the nitrous. ;-)

------
Krista