Plaidophile

All my life I've always had trouble with my teeth and cavities and so on. I really hate going to the dentist because dentists always blame me for it, which just adds insult to injury. I take good care of my teeth but I still always end up getting cavities and the like. It's very depressing.

It doesn't help also that dental insurance never really covers a lot. They seem to think that by covering only the bare minimum (for example, only covering fillings up to 80% of the cost of old-fashioned amalgams, not covering crowns at all, etc.) it'll encourage people to take better care of their teeth and never have problems. I'm sorry but it doesn't work that way! That's like health insurance only covering basic preventative medicine under the belief that it'll encourage people to not get cancer or something.

So anyway, the other night while I was brushing my teeth, I felt a huge pain in one of my molars on the left. I looked close in the mirror and noticed a fairly large crack running across it, close to the gumline. Even though I use a nightguard now (which, guess what, my insurance didn't pay for and cost me $500!), I guess I grind my teeth hard enough that it causes damage. I also have another quite visible cavity on my right lower cuspid. I'd noticed it starting a couple months ago and have of course paid plenty of attention to it and it's just gotten worse.

My dentist in Seattle was actually understanding and gentle and never blamed me for my dental problems, but every other dentist I've had has always made me fear going to them, and their hygienists seem to just love showing me the correct way to hold a toothbrush and to floss my teeth as if I didn't already know. (Okay, admittedly I'm bad about flossing regularly. It's hard to keep it up when I just know I'll keep having dental problems anyway though.)

As soon as I noticed the crack I scheduled an appointment (I'm due for a cleaning anyway), and managed to get in for tomorrow afternoon. I'm not looking forward to the results, though.

5:34 PM Oh great, and I need to reschedule my dentist appointment because my stupid insurance company won't cover cleaning/checkups which are closer than 6 months apart. To the day. So in order to get insurance coverage of this checkup it has to happen after Saturday. What the hell. (And it hurts to brush my teeth in the meantime so I guess this means I can just let it keep on rotting for another week!)

6:07 PM Okay I'll still have my appointment tomorrow to look at the tooth problems, I just won't get the cleaning until next week. YAY BUREAUCRACY.