Chronic Tonic: At This Point, I’d Be Happy With Dentures

(8 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Originally posted at Voices on the Square

Let’s talk about teeth. My teeth are just falling out. Kind of randomly. Has been a bit bothersome, but until the past month, didn’t bug me all that much; it was livable.

Ya see, my teeth have always been bad. I had my first cavities in grade school. Yeah, that’s plural. I had quite a few. And when I was around 9ish, a dentist said I had too many teeth for my jaw and I had a few permanent molars pulled. In hindsight, as bad a move as that might have been for a dentist to tell my ma, I have to say I agree – I just do not have that much jaw space – not even for the teeth I have left.

From 5th through 8th grade, I had the curse that is braces. I had crooked teeth and 4 years of painful braces and head gear – the whole 9 yards – and my teeth looked pretty good. Of course, over the ensuing years my teeth fought to return to their normal state and now, yeah, the braces did a little good but my teeth are still crooked, though thankfully, mostly just the bottom.

I mentioned the cavities – my enamel is thin and weak – it breaks and wears out easily. I cannot tell you how many root canals I’ve had, nor fillings, nor fillings that have fallen out, nor root canals that have failed and crowns that have broken off. Nor how many teeth I have broken. And I am the girl who used to floss religiously and always brushed her teeth. It’s really disheartening. I did everything right.

Which brings me to my gripe tonight. My upper right jaw is decimated. Out of the 4 molars that are in it, 3 of them are half teeth with fillings that are gone and the rear one is sans crown now. Thank gawd it’s on the side and not in front. Now, each time a tooth would break or a filling would fall out, I would spend a few days with my mouth in pain and then the pain would subside. Nothing has broken recently, but for some reason, for the past couple weeks, I have been in incredible pain. Not sustained, but frequent and in the same place. I’m wondering what happened and I’m eating advil. I also can’t do narcotics, but I have tramadol, but I’m almost out of that too. I’m really trying to practice some kind of mind control.

So I ask: Why on the Deity’s green earth is dental care not considered part of health care? Seriously, can anyone tell me why? Cuz I can go to the ER and get more tramadol, but I would need more money than my car is worth to get my damn teeth fixed cuz that’s not health care. Or even all pulled and dentures put in, which is what I would consider at this point. Last time I had a filling fall out and a tooth break, it cost me 3 grand to fix. Who has that kind of spare cash hanging around these days? So here I am, in pain and missing teeth, and the only thing I can actually do about it is get more pain pills. Fucked up that is.

So there ends my lovely toothache rant. The floor is yours.