Just be happy there's only 4 of them.

I had 5.

Any extra fingers or toes?

TR

Sorry, I can't resist
 

...but I waited until an emergency to see a new dentist once.

I had a bad sports accident in high school and sustained some damage to my jaw and many of my teeth. Afterward, I was left with a number of root-canaled, crowned teeth. I was told these teeth wouldn't last forever, but I'd been through enough at the time and didn't want to go straight to dental implants (OUCH!).

Fast forward thirteen years and I was just starting my first job after grad school. I started to get some aching, which quickly escalated to agony, and noticed a black ring all the way around the base of one of those root canaled, crowned teeth. I let it go a couple of days (I was busy, you know) until I could wiggle the tooth with my tongue and had a bad taste in my mouth. It was abscessed and looked like Tom Hanks' tooth in Castaway.

Of course, being new in town, I had no dentist and so I began asking around the office for recommendations. I tried calling several, none of whom could see me on short notice, before a friend mentioned that there was a dentist in his karate class. In retrospect, I should have kept dialing, but I made an appointment with said martial artist and drove waaaay out towards the edge of town for my appointment. When I pulled up, the office was sandwiched between a dry cleaners and a taqueria. I had a real bad feeling, but then again, that tooth really needed to come out!

So I went inside, got my x-rays taken and was escorted down a hallway to the last exam room. The next to last door was closed as I walked past, and the doctor got me situated quickly in the chair. He got to work right away, kinda-sorta numbed the area up, and started in on me. About then, I heard a long, pitiful moan come from the next room. The doc and I made brief eye contact, but he ignored the sound until about a minute later, when the moaning began again with increased urgency.

Muttering a "damn" to himself, he told me that he needed to "finish something" and would "be right back." He jammed my mouth full of gauze and told me to breathe though my nose. He then left and went into the next room, where I gather he picked up where he left off on his other patient 10-15 minutes before. After he had been gone for awhile, my numbness started to wear off and I became fearful of gagging, since my mouth was stuffed full of gauze and I was swallowing buckets of blood and puss. It was probably about that point that I let out my own moan.

Well, Doc was back in my room post haste and looking madder than hell. He bent over me, looked me in the face and asked, "You gonna shut the f*@! up or should I leave you like this?" Needless to say I went back to gagging quietly.

But hey, odoylerules, your luck might be better than mine. No reason to get your wisdom teeth yanked by a trusted source! :rolleyes:

Guess I should have used Crest huh? ;)

well...it ain't mah place t'say... :D

Oh sure sure...easy for you to say.... LOL

In reality my dentist tells me all the time I have great pearly whites. I use Colgate. :lifter

Focus... F-O-C-U-S ! :cool:

All
 

My wife is a Dental Hygienist and, believe me, I've heard some real HORROR STORIES !!

I can relate one though, it did NOT come out of her practice, that truly got MY ATTENTION !!!! We had this somewhat overweight "Bubba" at work, whose teeth were mostly BLACK, that went to the hospital to have them removed !! They discovered that he had a "GRAPEFRUIT" size abcess in his chest cavity and before they could get the antibiotics to even start to take control of it, something let loose in his bloodstream and he FLATLINED !!!!

Teeth are so close to your BRAIN and most people don't really pay that much attention to them !!!

Saca & Docs, please feel free to correct me if I am wrong !!! All of you need to get an "Ultrasonic" tooth care device post haste. They really do cut down on the BAD buildup on your teeth !!!

All, do take care !! (OF YOUR FRIGGIN TEETH !!!!)
Martin

"This much fun would KILL a normal man!"
 

"Not necessarily, he could always get them done one at the time to spread the pain around through four visits.

TR"

Hah! Once again TR, you hit it right on. Hope you're doing well. Good seeing you in Vegas!

Dave

Dave, great seeing you as well.

Drop me a line sometime, especially if you are up this way.

Nice thread on the XM-107 if you want to contribute.

Aloha and mahalo!

TR

Holy Toledo, someone caught Saca's jabs and it wasn't RL ! Well said. Jatx, holy smokes!!! :eek:

I schedule teeth cleanings for 4 times / year. 2 are covered by insurance. I typically end out going to 3 with unexpected travel messing up the 4'th.

I figure if twice is good for you (and minimum covered) then 4x is better.

They did that poke-at-gums test last time and I was mostly 2's with 3 3's and 2 4's. Afterwards, bought this battery-operated but still disposable toothbrush from Colgate where half of it rotates and vibrates. I think it does a much better job than just a plain toothbrush. I just gotta remember not to use it when Mr. Harsey is on the phone so as to not fluster him. "[FrontSight], what *is* that? " he asks, in a half-not-wanting-to-know-voice. :) Which of course caused me to choke and spit and get all defensive that it was just a toothbrush.

FrontSight

FS-

Anybody tell you lately what a FREAK you are?

Bill, hope that no one finds out about this. :D

TR

Back on subject......
 

I had my wisdom teeth out about three weeks ago, and in hindsight i shouldnt have had them taken out during spring break, made it tough to keep my mind on buisness. They were all impacted, and i ended up with dry sockets on the bottem, which they didnt diagnose until a week after i had them out. Do you know how they cure dry sockets? they stuff medicated gauze into the holes, its no fun. Every time i ran, or tusseled with my friends my mouth filled up with blood. There are three reasons i had them removed, 1. my recruiter told me every recruit gowing in with impacted wisdom teeth was going to get them pulled 2. my brother told me horror storys about him and the other poor saps that had theirs removed during BUD/S 3. i hadnt spent two years paying on insurence in anticipation of getting them taken out to just let the army mutilate me.

The total price for having mine done was about $1500, insurence covered all but $400 of it. Funny thing is that it was covered under my medical insurence rather than my dental because they had to put me out, do the IV, and all that fun crap. You really need to talk to your othordontis and then have a talk with whatever surgeon he refers you to and find out if they can work a little majic with your medical insurence. Theres bound to be some way to get it worked out and anything is better than haveing it done in basic.

And hence, a valuable lesson was learned about not screwing around while one is still healing. Or maybe it wasn't.

Believe you, me, it was! In my defense the tussling wasnt my idea, when your friends with Marines sometimes you just have to tussle, especially if your enlisted in the Army.