Ah, Friday night! So much fun for me today!

[thewayne]

Friday night's dinner: leftover pizza from Thursday, plus two pieces of garlic cheese Texas toast.

Not terribly challenging food, right?

Broke a tooth. ON THE TEXAS TOAST!

My right upper 'pre-molar'.

Amazingly, it turned out that my dentist has full hours on Saturday! Even more amazing, they were able to get me in!

And the really cool part? They have a computer-controlled milling machine and MADE ME A NEW TOOTH WHILE I WAS THERE! In and out in 2.5 hours, completely done (unless a problem comes up), and total out of pocket about $375!

I was fortunate in that it didn't cause any hot/cold sensitivity, just pressure, so it wasn't too bad overnight or today before the appointment, and the entire process wasn't too bad, once I was able to wrangle my body into a better position in the chair. I have three fused vertebrae in my neck, and turning my head to the right for a prolonged period of time is a non-starter, but scootching my entire body over and lying more on my right side, that works just fine.

It was a lot less expensive proposition, and simpler solution, that what I was horrifiedly extrapolating in my mind. So that was a good thing. Really, aside from disrupting my entire day, no down side out of it: tooth is fixed, had some really good fish tacos for dinner and brought back some Al Pastor tacos for the spousal unit, picked up some stuff at Target and Sprouts, and got in quite a bit of studying in for my radio license testing over dinner.

Comments

[disneydream06]

OH NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No more toast for you. :o
Hugs, Jon

[thewayne]

And this toast is soooo gooood!

[disneydream06]

That was like a couple of years ago when I popped a gummi bear in my mouth and as soon as I bit down a crown popped off. Scared me off gummi bears for a good long time. I am still leery of them, and now I have a whole big bag of them sitting on the counter. LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[thewayne]

My first experience like that, I think I was in my 20s, went to dinner with a friend, popped a piece of bubblegum in my mouth afterwards and it either pulled a filling out or a piece of tooth, I don't recall which.

[disneydream06]

YIKES... Did you eat gum after that for awhile?

[thewayne]

I stopped that brand, definitely.  I don't think I've touched it since.

[disneydream06]

Dang, I don't remember the last time I had some bubble gum. :o

[moonhare]

Glad that was a quick fix! And so much better than a root canal! My caps would be in the $800 range, if my insurance didn’t cover the costs.

[thewayne]

I was lucky it wasn't an RC.  I haven't had one yet, hope I never need one!

[kaishin108]

Your dentist visit sounds amazing, and that price, wow!

[thewayne]

I was quite surprised and very pleased!  I have to say that it was one of the best dental visits that I've had.

[silveradept]

Wow, both on the tooth break and the construction of the new fitting while you were being seen.

[thewayne]

It was perhaps, in the end, my best dental experience ever.

[viridian5]

I haven't eaten peppermint bark since a shard of candy cane yanked out a filling of mine years ago.

That is amazing dentistry. A new, fast, fairly cheap tooth too? I have a lower molar that's 98% filling material because Medicaid didn't want to replace it, and I fought half a year with them to get that decision, as opposed to them pulling it out and leaving an empty hole.

[thewayne]

The Texas toast now being the weirdest, my previous champion was an Arby's chicken finger pulling off a bit of tooth.  I had a run over a couple of years where it seemed whenever I was leaving town on a trip, something would cause a filling to come out!

[viridian5]

It's more confusing to me when a filling just gives up and falls out for no obvious reason, not eating food, not clenching your teeth, nothing, you just suddenly have a piece rolling around in your mouth.

[thewayne]

The first time I had it happen I was just brushing my teeth!  Felt a piece of something in my mouth as I was rinsing, now I can't remember if it was a piece of filling or tooth.  15-some years ago.  I had no idea until that time that fillings and teeth aren't nearly as long-lived as I'd previously thought.

[viridian5]

I take a lot of medications for my disability that destroyed my teeth, which are now mostly fillings as a result and I worry about their aging. Teeth are very important for one's health and easy to mess up, and replacing them individually or en masse is expensive and risky, something I've seen up close and personal from my grandmother and my father's partner.

[thewayne]

Ah.  Yes, that's a very particular problem.  My wife and I were discussing this last night.  I was born in '61, when I was in grade school, I remember classes going through the nurse's office and we had to swish a fluoride solution.  Eventually Phoenix got fluoridated water and that stopped.  For my wife, who's 7 years younger, she didn't have that happen.  But her older sibs, one has otosclerosis, which apparently can be symptomatic of not having been raised with fluoridated water.  Both sets of my grandparents had dentures, my dad had a lot of dental work late in his life, but so far I've been lucky.

[felisdemens]

Wow, I wish my dental replacement was that streamlined!But nooo, it's a multi-step process over six months. I'm glad yours was a quick and easy fix.

[thewayne]

It was pretty awesome!  It's amazing to say that this was the best dental experience of my life, but it was!  They have two of these CNC dental mills in their office, so they can probably crank out approx ten teeth an hour if they need to!  It was a pretty cool setup, I thought it was a 3D printer using additive printing, but they take a blank and cut it down to spec, which makes a lot more sense from a structural strength standpoint.