Posted on November 17, 2013 in Dentition Dreams
The crowns in my mouth are falling off, leaving stubby posts where teeth once stood along the gum line. (Which is what they actually look like underneath all that porcelain and gold.). Then top — just the top — of one of the molars comes off. I pull it out of my mouth to find that it is silver that has been welded onto the tooth. How are they going to fix this, I wonder.
Posted on November 4, 2013 in Dentition Encounters Hiking
The other day a trail biker ran me down. Not out of malice, but due to ragged chance. I heard the brakes screaming and a voice shouting behind me, so Instinct had me step to the right onto the grassy siding. Alas, he had the same idea. The handlebars caught me in the small of my back. I gnashed my teeth because of the force rather than out of rancor and stumbled a couple of steps forward until I found my balance again. He was lying under his bike on his side, so I gave him a hand and pulled him up. His new brake pads had failed. We both marveled at our lack of injury, so we shook hands and went on our ways. Some hours later, I found I’d cracked a temporary. Instinct told me nothing about how to handle this, so I spent the weekend eating soft foods and snaking my tongue around the pillar of tooth left naked by the absent crown.
Posted on April 24, 2012 in Anxiety Dentition Dogs Health OCD Spirituality and Being Whines
Let me count the ways the events of the past few months have screwed me. Note that there may will be additions as the weeks pass…so keep checking this article. It will be a mega-whine!
YES I KNOW IT CAN BE WORSE AND THAT IS WHAT WORRIES ME!
Everyone is telling me that “things will get better”. I sigh and reread Job.
At least Lynn’s chemo is over and the scans are looking good. And Obama won.
Posted on May 16, 2011 in Dentition Depression Insurance Psychotropics
A plague is sweeping the nation. Three out of four Americans suffer from it. It is virulent and contagious. It destroys living tissue and bone. Bacteria at the point of infection inject their poisons into the bloodstream, exporting the destruction to other parts of the body. [[Cardiovascular disease]], [[joint problems]], [[pancreatic cancer]], [[diabetes]], [[asthma]], [[osteoporosis]], and even [[Alzheimer’s disease]] have been associated with it. Yet normal insurance does not cover its treatment. It was not part of health care reform. Most Americans are covered only to the tune of a couple of thousand dollars a year or less.
Bacterial plaque of the mouth is vile. ((Plaque occurs in layers. It looks like a thick off-white goo. As it builds up, the most destructive bacteria migrate to the bottom where they exist in an environment that is without air, light, or food. The longer you don’t brush your teeth, the thicker these colonies will be. And it is important to brush regularly: the bacteria growth or [[Pellicle_(dental)|pellicle]] can reestablish itself in only twenty minutes!)) Most people think it only causes [[caries]] or [[gingivitis]]. But recent studies show that the bacteria dump their waste products into the blood stream — a phenomenon called bacterima — causing problems in other parts of your body. If left untreated, the acids and other waste products will erode the bone of your mouth. This cannot be replaced. You will lose your teeth and if the condition is serious enough, you won’t be able to replace them with dentures or other dental appliances.
Healthy, mentally stable people think it is a simple matter to keep your mouth clean. Consider the third of the population who suffer from major [[depression]] though. When you twirl and fall into the morass as I did, you see your mouth as a hopeless cause. Why brush? Why floss? The commercials all say that your teeth must be white. ((Their natural color is yellow.)) You look into the mirror and fail to see the brilliant flash that advertising and employers say must be there. Even professional polishing fails to brighten your grimace. As conditions worsen, the costs of repairing the damage increase. It becomes more difficult to chew. Your jaw aches. So you give up.
Clearly, this is yet another symptom of the psychiatric disorder. But despite the broader health implications of the [[biofilm]], insurance companies and the public in general view dental care as cosmetic — about as important a medical concern as shaving or getting a haircut.
Insurance treats your mouth as an alien camper in your body. If you turn your lungs into a cancerous sac by smoking, your costs are covered to $750,000. If you become addicted to alcohol or other drugs, your rehabilitation is paid for. But most people are covered only to the tune of $1,500 or less each year. Beyond that low bar you have to pay out of your own pocket.
Do you see the discrepancy? Diseases caused by smoking and alcohol are equally caused by a lack of self control, yet they are covered. You can get your oxygen paid under Medicare ((At least for now)) and a heart bypass covered under most insurance, but there’s nothing out there for a dental implant if you need it. It cost me $40,000 to fix my mouth. Most of this came from my family and a large contribution by my Quaker meeting’s sharing fund. It has taken us years to recover from my melancholy-induced negligence.
In 2008, Congress mandated mental health parity. This meant that my bipolar disorder — which had indirectly caused my dental disaster — was now covered. Barring changes by this Republican Congress, regular care for this life-threatening condition of mine was now possible.
Given the wider damage wreaked by bacterima, it’s about time that there was parity for dental work.
Posted on May 11, 2011 in Bipolar Disorder Dentition Psychotropics
The scariest fact is that more than 600 drugs cause dry mouth. This includes all antidepressants, anti-psychotics, anti-convulsants, and stimulants.
Posted on April 7, 2011 in Bipolar Disorder Dentition Reflections
I do this for me, but I have no qualms if you find something for yourself here, too. I am not selfish. Accept my sharing if it helps.
Posted on June 2, 2010 in Dentition Dreams
After cruising the streets of Salt Lake City, I find myself in a dentist’s chair. The dentist reviews the care I’ve received from six different professionals. He focuses especially on one, whose treatments I found especially palliative. A graphic illustrates what I think was done to my mouth — the good spread clear across the palate touching all corners. Then he shows me that it was only a single tooth. The light that was that tooth disappears. I tremble so hard at the thought it was all in vain that I wake up.
Posted on May 31, 2010 in Body Language Dentition Neurology
Lately, the little and ring fingers of the left hand have balked at the simple tasks I once employed them for….Everywhere I look for shortcuts
Posted on June 5, 2009 in Dentition Routine Weather
Once through all that, however, everything was pretty much the same as it had been all the years I’d been going to Tustin, California for periodontal work
Posted on May 23, 2009 in Body Language Dentition Hikes and Trails Photos
This is a photo ((If you want to see more, visit my photostream.)) I took on my last walk with Drake in the hills. This golden mesa kept attracting my attention but I couldn’t frame it with a wide-angle lense, so I stretched out my zoom to telephoto length. Even then, haze made the picture unpretty, so when I downloaded at home, I put it through an infrared and then a platinum effect plug-in to get the result that you see.
I’ve been quiet mostly because I went into a frenzy of shooting photos before I got a tooth extracted on Wednesday. I’m none too comfortable today — traditionally the most painful because you puff up and stretch the stitches to the breaking point.
Last night I got up the courage to look at what the periodontist had wreaked ((My Twitter friend Felicity said “You only just looked at it tonight? I would have checked it as soon as I got home.” I confess I am a coward and need to get used to the string being there.)) . There’s enough string stretching from tooth to gum to palate (ew!) in there to rig the Pilgrim or The Spirit of Dana Point. I imagine sailors tugging at the lines, changing the direction of the gums, with each pull producing a new, spasm.
This is usual for the third and fourth days, which I am in. Fortunately I was so nonplussed by the pain of the second day that I stopped taking vicodin at all, so I have a store ready to weather the next several hours of misery.
This ship is rounding the Horn. We’ll make the Golden Coast soon.
Posted on October 26, 2006 in Dentition
The procedure (which I knew well from other excursions of the same kind) involved drilling, filing out the dead nerves, the insertion of an electric probe (to measure the length of the roots?), and the final filling of the slim cavities.
Posted on October 25, 2006 in Dentition
Today’s fun is a root canal! First in four years! Well, that’s an improvement.