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 O.city:
No , usually just to myself over lunch.
Well played, doctor. Well played. Was asking because your patient seemed more than a little out of it and also pretty sanguine about getting his choppers yanked unexpectedly.
Originally Posted by CarlosCarson88:
3 wisdom teeth still in. Crowded teeth and a broken filling. Where would you begin?
Depends.
If you aren't having problems cleaning the wisdom teeth i'd leave them. If you're a bit older, wisdom teeth removal can be a bit of a bugger so unless they are causing issues, leave them.
If you want to address the crowding, you'd probably wanna get them out and do some invisalign or some kind of ortho.
Likely, I'd say "lets fix this filling and are you worried about the crowding? If no and it's not really causing any issues with cleaning those areas, lets just let it ride".
In the end, I would give you the options and let you decide what you wanna do. [Reply]
If you aren't having problems cleaning the wisdom teeth i'd leave them. If you're a bit older, wisdom teeth removal can be a bit of a bugger so unless they are causing issues, leave them.
If you want to address the crowding, you'd probably wanna get them out and do some invisalign or some kind of ortho.
Likely, I'd say "lets fix this filling and are you worried about the crowding? If no and it's not really causing any issues with cleaning those areas, lets just let it ride".
In the end, I would give you the options and let you decide what you wanna do.
That invisalign stuff/ things actually works ? [Reply]
Running two practices full time has worn me down lately. Couple interesting stories for you guys though.
Got yelled at by the mom of a 15 year old kid this week. Had a small cavity on an upper right molar think it was a first molar. Anyway, very small pit and fissure decay, discussed with the kid "hey, i can probably do this without giving you a shot and it won't be sensitive or hurt, just might feel a bit cold. If it does, let me know, I'll give you some anesthetic, no biggie".
Kid says ok, we do the filling, no problem. Kid never moves, says anything. I ask at the end, "that go ok?"
"Yeah, didn't feel a thing, thanks I was dreading the shot" .
Walk into my office and next thing I know mom is irate at the front dest. I walk up there to de escalate and she unloads on me.
"How dare you do a filling with no anesthetic, you've traumatized my child, I'll be suing etc" I tell her I felt for that size of decay an injection was unnecessary and that it's very common to do it this way.
Originally Posted by O.city:
Finally getting around to this thread.
Running two practices full time has worn me down lately. Couple interesting stories for you guys though.
Got yelled at by the mom of a 15 year old kid this week. Had a small cavity on an upper right molar think it was a first molar. Anyway, very small pit and fissure decay, discussed with the kid "hey, i can probably do this without giving you a shot and it won't be sensitive or hurt, just might feel a bit cold. If it does, let me know, I'll give you some anesthetic, no biggie".
Kid says ok, we do the filling, no problem. Kid never moves, says anything. I ask at the end, "that go ok?"
"Yeah, didn't feel a thing, thanks I was dreading the shot" .
Walk into my office and next thing I know mom is irate at the front dest. I walk up there to de escalate and she unloads on me.
"How dare you do a filling with no anesthetic, you've traumatized my child, I'll be suing etc" I tell her I felt for that size of decay an injection was unnecessary and that it's very common to do it this way.
She storms out.
Oh well.
You should have hired someone to drive to her place of work and yell at her for being a cunt. [Reply]
Damn I needed a root canal for the first time ever. My last molar next to my wisdom tooth (I have all four grew in fine) was hurting really bad on that side when i chewed or ate cold food. Sure it was infected.
got the root canal and three days before getting the temp crown put on I bit into a burrito and BAM the tooth broke clear down the middle and side. had to get it extracted. First time. Ouch.
Originally Posted by TinyEvel:
Damn I needed a root canal for the first time ever. My last molar next to my wisdom tooth (I have all four grew in fine) was hurting really bad on that side when i chewed or ate cold food. Sure it was infected.
got the root canal and three days before getting the temp crown put on I bit into a burrito and BAM the tooth broke clear down the middle and side. had to get it extracted. First time. Ouch.
Getting an implant. $$$$ F-me But
Damn. Have seen it happen a lot.
Second molars are so close to the hinge angle they take a beating. My dad had a 2nd molar blow up and need a root canal. No chance I was doing it, but I was gonna go in and take the nerve out (pulpotomy) and get him out of pain. Found a crack and had to extract it.
If you had to lose a tooth, second molar would be the one to lose. [Reply]
