Wow thanks to yall who replied. Makes me feel a bit better knowing I'm not alone! [img]smile.gif[/img]
As for my recent dental experience, well, I need to start at the beginning I think. (warning - boring details ahead).:
7 years ago, while at the dentist, I decided to ask my dentist if he could fix this one front tooth. It had been chipped when I was 13, and patched a few times, a few different ways, for years. But the patches seemed to stain, and because of so many done the tooth also looked kinda fat. I hated it basically LOL. So he told me he could put a porcelain crown on it, real nice, white, realistic looking, etc. BUT. If I opted for white it may not match my other teeth. Well I started thinking. I also had two teeth, both second over from the "two fronts", that were crooked. One turned in slightly, the other turned out a lot. Hated them LOL. Healthy teeth though, especially the one that turn outwards, cause it kinda stayed away from the other teeth I reckon LOL. So I asked the dentist, if I do all six front teeth, could you also fix the crooked part? He said yes. So I did it. Didn't know though they drill your teeth to nubs first, then put on the crowns attached to the nubs/roots. Was OK with the tooth that was all patched up, but I must say it was kinda sad knowing he was drilling perfectly healthy teeth to nubs, but hey, I asked for it! Well he gets to this one tooth while drilling down, and tells me he accidentally nicked the nerve while drilling, and is afraid it may give me pain later, so he wants to do a root canal (remove the nerve). Well of course at this point, mouth open, nubs and shards LOL, I tell him yes go ahead, cause crap knows I don't want to feel pain later either, and he already nicked it so no use complaining. It was a four hour procedure, and when he was done he fitted me with these temporary crowns, and they were frikken yellowy too! LOL, maybe he was out of the white ones, or maybe he wanted my permanent crowns to look that much better after being yellow for two weeks LOL. Who knows, all I know is I kept my mouth closed mostly during those two weeks LOL. Anyways, in the end I got my white porcelain ones in and all was great, this was 7 years ago. Only thing is I noticed I couldn't get floss through this one crack between the teeth, seemed there was porcelain in the crack. I didn't worry about it though, you couldn't see it except for up close.
Well. Since then on and off I have tried to floss through that crack LOL. And I remember Tuesday at work I ate a salad and decided to floss at my desk. Then. Wednesday morning, I wake up, go to the bathroom mirror, and my tooth is so loose, pushing so far out, it is going to fall out any minute. Well I haven't been to my dentist in two years, and he is not really very close anymore since we moved, so I decide to go to another dentist, one only a mile or so away. I'm thinking he can just glue or solder it back on LOL. Nope. He says there is nothing for him to glue onto properly, nothing of the tooth left to anchor on. He seemed very surprised it had hung on for 7 years. So of course now I'm thinking about that bit of porcelain in the crack, I bet that I finally flossed through it, and it was basically what was holding up the tooth. I bet the dentist drilled the tooth down to where he wanted it, but then nicked the nerve. doh! Had no choice though but root canal it, which meant MORE drilling of the tooth. So he compensated for it by probably adding extra stuff to keep my tooth up.
So anyways, this new dentist told me I could (a) have him use a pin and put the tooth back in, but it would probably start slipping in a few DAYS, for $412.00.... Well I told him that was a bit much for just a few days! Then he told me well, since the tooth fits so well, you could use PolyGrip to keep in until you decide what you want to do to get a permanent crown solution. Then he actually popped my tooth back in with Polygrip, and it is sticking. So yeah, better than paying $412.00 for some contraption that may start falling down and making it hard to eat.
His permanent solution were two things, one a bridge, and one an implant. Both cost huge amounts! And I kept asking him what would be best, a bridge or an implant, and he never replied anything but "its up to you." [img]tongue.gif[/img] dunno.. Seems the bridge is the less painful maybe, as the Implant is basically them drilling a screw into your jawbone. Then you have to wait SIX weeks for your jawbone to heal, then you go back and they mold a crown and literally screw it on. Ack, drilling into the jawbone, that wasn't what I ordered when I was looking at the Menu!
So I don't know what to do at this point. I think I've decided to go back to the dentist who did the work 7 years ago, even if it is a longer drive to get to his office. Maybe he will be able to fix it the way he did before and I won't have to do the Bridge or Implant. Either way, until then, I'm literally using my crown tooth as a denture LOL. Those commercials they show for PolyGrip and such are bogus too LOL, no frikken WAY I could bite into an apple!
I'm trying though to not let this get to me. I'm trying to find humor in it. I can't help myself, sometimes when friends visit I take my tooth out and grin all redneck like LOL, usually I work my neck too for emphasis LOL. Hey, it's laugh or cry LOL. [img]tongue.gif[/img] [img]smile.gif[/img]
[ 05-22-2003, 08:51 PM: Message edited by: ladyzekke ]