Phew! What a day. A whirlwind kind of day. First off, I must tell you all to visit your dentist regularly. Yeah, okay, call me mom. Whatever. But seriously, I had a major scare at the dentist this morning and if I can prevent someone from having to go through the same thing, I will.
I had a root canal done about twenty years ago, back when molar crowns were made of metal. Those metal crowns block x-ray views of what's going on underneath. My fabulous dentist detected a shadow beside that crown on the x-ray and determined it was a cavity. Problem was, he couldn't see how bad it was from the picture. The tooth was dead due to the canal, but infection can result from a deep enough cavity even in a dead tooth. If it went too deep, he'd have to send me to an endocrinologist to fix the damn thing for a few thousand dollars. I could kiss my savings goodbye.
I wasn't about to spend that kind of money on one tooth, a dead tooth at that, and I told him so. I said he'd have to pull it. Him, being the magnificent dentist that he is, told me he would remove the crown and drill through the tooth to see how deep the cavity was. If it wasn't too deep, he could fill it and put on a new crown. If it was too deep for him to fix, he'd pull it, though not without major reservations because the tooth below it would then be in danger of having major problems without its upstairs buddy.
The brilliant Dr. Andy did a fabulous job of fixing my tooth so I didn't have to have it pulled or spend my savings on a root canal redo by the I-have-a-house-in-
Aspen-and-the-Camen-Islands endocrinologist. Yay! My tooth – number 2 on the upper right – has been saved!
So take care of your teeth, y'all. They're the only ones you've got. Lose 'em and you'll end up looking like Granny from the Beverly Hillbillies.
For those of you living in Bend who want to know the name of my excellent dentist, he is Dr. Andy Engel and his office is on Yates off of Colorado on the west side.
Next time you smile, or chew, or talk, think about your teeth. Make an appointment to see your dentist today!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment