(Phaysis)

I saw a dentist a few days ago; my right teeth have been bothering me for a few weeks. Aside from a deep need for a deep cleaning, he gave me some bad news. It’s time again for a root canal.

This is on a tooth that was patched up last year at Castle Dental. Remember my travails with all that dental nonsense? It seems the prior dentist either didn’t remove the whole cavity before doing the filling or he didn’t do the filling well. Either way, I have a cavity that’s just about reached the nerve, a filling that’s coming loose, and I’m screwed bigtime.

My dentist referred me to a specialist in Westlake to do the actual root canal procedure; I called that office yesterday to set up an appointment and got a quote: $743, which is absolute BS.

“Oh no no no, that won’t do. You said you accept my insurance, don’t you?”

“Yes, we’re a contracted agent, but you’ll have to pay out of pocket, and then your insurance may reimburse you according to their policies. If necessary, we could even let you go half-and-half on payments.”

“Still, I can’t do that. Cancel the appointment.”

So today, I called my insurance. It’s true: the specialist is a contracted agent, and they accept my insurance, but that only gives me a 20% discount on services since they’re a specialist. Any regular dentist would fall under the usual insurance fee scale meaning my copay would be $212, a much more agreeable sum. So I’m left with searching for a regular dentist who does root canals. I know of one clinic, but I don’t know if I want to deal with Castle again. Their work on my first root canal was prompt, in-house, and covered under my plan, but I’d have to deal with Castle Dental again.

My tooth is starting to hurt. Time to make a decision soon.

I know it’s sounding like a broken record. That’s what bothers me most about it. My teeth are hurting again. I had a visit with my dentist on monday to get three of my teeth (on the upper right) filled, which he dutifully did. Then at dinner I discovered that my teeth were now more temperature sensitive than before. Great. I’ll acclimate.

Well, the pain started yesterday. Pain like I had a tooth infection, or whatever. Pain almost like the dull, joy-killing pain I had when I first had tooth problems back in February. Almost the same tooth, almost the same spot, which is impossible: that tooth is now dead after the root canal. This tells me a few things: there’s an infection at the roots ($), or my wisdom teeth really need to come out now ($$$), or the filling procedure left me open for infection.

So, for the moment, I’ll go back to the Tylenol and deal with it until my appointment next monday to fill the other 3 cavities. I’ll see if the dentist has anything to say about the pain. I know I can’t afford to pay the $523 upfront cost to get 4 wisdoms pulled. But given that next wednesday is payday and that the oral surgeon makes the visit to my dentist’s office on wednesdays, maybe I can swing getting the two right wisdoms pulled for half the price.

Damn, this sucks.

Alright. Update on the tooth situation. On Tuesday of last week I woke up early and managed to get through to an actual voice at the UT Dental School in San Antonio. I explained my situation, expressed my sensations of ongoing pain, and the operator offered to set an emergency appointment for me on the next day to get a temporary filling placed, after which I would then be called back some day or week later to get the root canal performed. Quickly deciding that getting a temporary filling, dealing with more pain after the fill, and then having to go through it all again to get finished was not worth the driving, gas, traffic, and headache of going to San Antonio on pain meds, I backed out and went with my Plan B.

I called my boss, explained what was going on, and took the day off. Got myself cleaned up and went to Castle Dental to see about getting this taken care of. Did the paperwork, insurance, blah blah, then the dentist saw me, the assistant took an X-ray, the dentist came back and the X-ray hadn’t changed a bit in the past week – I still had a major hole in my tooth. So he addressed the same two options the previous dentist presented: extraction or root canal. I opted to keep the tooth. So he had the receptionists schedule for me to return at 2pm that afternoon to undergo the procedure. Everything was go.

Waiting for 2 hours was the hardest, most painful part. Wracked with nervousness, I ate some lunch and tried to distract myself. I chatted with a friend of mine back home who manages a dentist office, got some needed consolement, and then I steadied my resolve to go have it all done and make the pain go away.

There is nothing that can compare to trying to keep biting down on a dental tray full of rubber epoxy for 7 minutes in order to get a mold of your original tooth while your jaw is loaded up on anesthetics, the slobber is building, the slurping is increasing, and the plate is cutting into your gums as it’s pressed hard into them. Quite a humbling time, to be sure. Well, actually, the high-frequency shocks that shoot through your skull as the dentist reams out the crown and then each root of the tooth with his high dollar dremel tool — yeah, that can compare. (Enjoy the mental images)

So. I am now sporting a mostly dead tooth capped off with a temporary acrylic crown cast from the mold of my old tooth. I go back on the 15th of this month to have the tooth’s roots permanenty filled and have the ceramic crown, currently being made at a dental lab, installed. Until then, I can only eat on my left side (because the acrylic will break under force), and that’s just too weird; my jaw hinge hurts sometimes because I can’t chew on the right side, and I’m only getting half of the flavor out of my meals. Bleh. But I’m (mostly) pain free, and this is a good thing.

And would you expect to get all this for $69.95? No? How about $49.95? Guess again. Wait, would you expect to pay $19.95 for all this, PLUS the antiobiotic pills, the codiene pills, and the highly fashionable ceramic crown? “Most certainly not!” you say? Well, how about we throw in two hours of your time for absolute free? $9.95? You can have this all for the low, low price of only $631.95! Astonishing! For this unbelievably low price, YOU TOO could experience the freedom to say, “I have had major dental work done!” Shipping and handling is free to the first 200 callers – operators are standing by, so CALL NOW!

My period of good fortune came to an abrupt end on Tuesday of last week. There I was at dinner, high on a good mood, a decent day, and a good meal when the corner of one of my nachos went sideways and buried itself between the gum and the space between two of my molars during a joyful bite (those things find the darnedest of places). So, in pain I finished my meal and went home to attend to my wound and fish out the nacho with toothbrush and floss. What came out was significantly more than just the nacho corner. In doing so, I removed the last of what was protecting the nerve of my tooth from the rest of the world. Pain shot like wildfire from there to engulf the entire right side of my mouth.

I slept that night only by the help of Tylenol, Orajel, and Xanax.

Wednesday morning I woke up early (through no choice of mine) and dug around for a dentist who was on my insurance plan; found one nearby and set up an appointment for that morning. Called the boss to warn him of my tardiness; he was understanding. I get to the dentist, fill out the paperwork, and am shuffled in to get an Xray and wait for my consultation with the dentist to examine the situation. Looking at the Xray of the four teeth on that side, from front to back, the shapes were: square, square, the letter C, square. I had a major cavity.

The dentist indicated two possible solutions: extraction or root canal. At 32, I’m too young to walk around with more holes in my mouth than necessary, plus I don’t want to go around dealing with the pain of shifting, migrating teeth. So my best option is root canal. Painful for a short while, expensive to perform (even with my insurance), but I’ll keep my tooth. I called my mother to inform her that the Family Curse, that of weak tooth enamel, has landed on me, and she agreed that my best option is root canal.

So, until I can find a dentist/endodontist to do the surgery, I’m living on Tylenol and amoxicillin. My liver is hating me. My best option, so far, is to set up an appointment with the UT dental school in San Antonio; for a low cost (due to me being a guinea pig), I can have good dental work done — that is if I can get on the roster and get in soon. I called this morning at 8am sharp for the better part of an hour to get through. Got nothing but voicemail announcements and hold music, which I kind of expected, but not this bad. Didn’t talk to a real person all that time.

Then it occurred to me that today is a damned federal holiday. So I’m kinda banking on that maybe they took the day off. I will try again tomorrow morning, 8am sharp, to get in for either an emergency appointment or some appointment this week. If that fails, then it’s Plan B (my original plan): Castle Dental (yes, I’ve heard the stories of that place — and I’ve heard good reports. It’s 50/50, just like any other random dentist). There, I can get everything done in one place without having to set up appointments everywhere just to get this done.

This pain is killing me. Of all the pains I’ve experienced in my life, dental pain is the absolute worst. When your teeth hurt, you’re just useless, in a darkened room, rolling and kicking on the bed, clutching yourself praying for relief that never comes. Nothing makes it better but more drugs, and that’s just temporary relief. I had some Tylenol just 4 hours ago, and the pain’s almost back in full force. No way to live. So I’ve got to get this root canal done this week or I’m pulling the fucker myself.

Wish me luck on a speedy resolution and recovery.