Had a pretty interesting day today at the office. Morning was pretty normal, drill and fill, check hygiene, extract a tooth etc. Nothing too out of the ordinary.
Pretty normal lunch. Trolled around on CP, ate an apple and a handful of wheat thins.
Then the afternoon hit.
I see inmates from the county jail here in town if they have a tooth ache or something, sheriff or deputy will call up and bring them up in shackles and the whole bit. It's not big deal, most of them are just happy to get out of pain and it's not a problem. So dude comes in, my assistant goes in to ask the normal "which tooth is bothering you, let me get an xray, blah blah". I was in the lab doing something so I wasn't really paying attention. She comes in and says "doc, you will need to come look at something" to which I responded "he need a tooth out, which tooth is hurting"?
"All of them". Huh, ok, weird response but lets go check it out. Sure enough, continued meth use pretty much causes things to not go so well intraorally, so he was pretty much decayed out and most teeth were broken off to the gumline (google meth mouth if you want to see it, i'm not messing with photos). Asked if I could extract all 26 teeth he had left in the 30 minute block we had on the schedule for him.
I laughed, said "nah, which one hurts the worst, we'll take that out". He pointed to one, I numbed it up, used an elevator to take it out, about 30 seconds worth of pressure and it was pretty lose. 2 teeth next to it are super mobile and infected (which starts draining as I get this one out, that smelt nice) so I told him he was getting 2 free extractions since he was already numb in that area and they were loose and I was right there, no harm no foul.
It's always fun when we see the inmates, the Sheriff comes up and sits in the room with them all serious, then when I come in the room we talk about hunting or why the Chiefs always break hearts or something.
He breaks down and starts crying thanking me, that he already felt better (if you saw the amount of infection I drained, you'd see why) and asked if he could make an appointment for when he got out. "Sure, how long you think you'll be in this predicament".
"I figure 4 or 5 years, you scheduling ahead that far yet"? Told him nah, just take care of himself and come see me when he gets out.
Next patient is an amish guy (we have a fairly big amish community near us), super nice guy, needs a crown. Asks if he can barter instead of pay, I ask what is in it for me, said he'd bring me a dozen eggs every week for 6 months (they have chicken barns or something) or I could have a quarter of one of the cows they're butchering. Sold, eggs and beef for a crown, sign me up.
Only problem with that is he scheduled an appointment for himself, but brought 4 other family members who all needed work done.
So we had a waiting room full of inmates and Amish this afternoon. Thought that might be a good name of a band or something. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Titty Meat:
Do you have to put people under for this? That's like 2k a tooth isnt it?
I got one several years ago and it was notably more than that. I think by the time all of the bills were in it was about $4k, but I could be wrong on that since it involved a bunch of different people with separate bills. I had a few issues, like the dentist guy leaving partway through the process and I vaguely remember one of the dental people telling me about some medical thing they had to do differently than normal.
In the end, it's been nice, though. I didn't want to do the alternative, which involved filing down the nearby teeth.
I look very skeptically at those billboards that advertise a full mouth of implants in one day for an absurdly low price. I figure they're just sticking some fake teeth from a prank store in your mouth and gluing them down. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Frosty:
O.city, do you do implants? What is the cost for one verses a root canal and crown?
I do the restorative part. Don't do the surgical part. Usually refer that to either periodontist or oral surgeon.
Root canal and crown is gonna cost you 1800-2200 id guess, where an implant could be in the 3-3500 region.
I always recommend keeping our teeth if we can. If you do a Root canal and crown and it fails, you can go to implant placement. If an implant fails, things get a little more complex. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Rain Man:
I got one several years ago and it was notably more than that. I think by the time all of the bills were in it was about $4k, but I could be wrong on that since it involved a bunch of different people with separate bills. I had a few issues, like the dentist guy leaving partway through the process and I vaguely remember one of the dental people telling me about some medical thing they had to do differently than normal.
In the end, it's been nice, though. I didn't want to do the alternative, which involved filing down the nearby teeth.
I look very skeptically at those billboards that advertise a full mouth of implants in one day for an absurdly low price. I figure they're just sticking some fake teeth from a prank store in your mouth and gluing them down.
Oh fuck that 4k? I have a missing canine but would rather get a car. [Reply]
Originally Posted by O.city:
I do the restorative part. Don't do the surgical part. Usually refer that to either periodontist or oral surgeon.
Root canal and crown is gonna cost you 1800-2200 id guess, where an implant could be in the 3-3500 region.
I always recommend keeping our teeth if we can. If you do a Root canal and crown and it fails, you can go to implant placement. If an implant fails, things get a little more complex.
It may have changed but last time I checked, insurance wouldn't pay for an implant but would for a root canal and crown, which I thought was odd if the prices were close, which is why I asked. I have a crown that has been a pain and has been replaced once already and it just seems easier to just yank it and get an implant instead (I didn't get a root canal with it though). [Reply]
Someone stole the bench from out in front of my office this past week. We have a camera up so we saw who it was but it’s just an old metal wooden bench that a lot of the patients sit on so ir sucks
Originally Posted by O.city:
Well not really dental related but
Someone stole the bench from out in front of my office this past week. We have a camera up so we saw who it was but it’s just an old metal wooden bench that a lot of the patients sit on so ir sucks
Why steal a bench ?
Some people just want to see the world burn . [Reply]
Originally Posted by O.city:
Well not really dental related but
Someone stole the bench from out in front of my office this past week. We have a camera up so we saw who it was but it’s just an old metal wooden bench that a lot of the patients sit on so ir sucks
Originally Posted by O.city:
Well not really dental related but
Someone stole the bench from out in front of my office this past week. We have a camera up so we saw who it was but it’s just an old metal wooden bench that a lot of the patients sit on so ir sucks
Why steal a bench ?
Other than the metal. I have no idea. What is the price of metal these days? Serious question.
We have people around here stealing catalytic converters from cars. [Reply]
Remember that second pre-molar that I had ripped out in March? I still have chunks of tooth coming out. These will be numbers 4 and 5. These are easily the largest of the chunks to come out.
I'm just letting these things exit at their own pace because I'll be damned if I go to another dentist, no offense intended, unless I absolutely have to.
