:D Like super terrible? I have no plans for going as I have no money, but I'm just wondering how worried about it I should be. I'm 20 years old now and I've only been to the dentist three times in my life and have only gotten one filling done though they said I had quite a few cavities! I can totally see them, too, in my molars and in the past couple years it has started to hurt to eat really sugary candy (not enough to make me stop though). Also, I know my molars have got to be completely f@cked because they're still the baby teeth, as they never fell out because there are no permanent teeth to kick them out. Hooray congenitally missing teeth! 8D Also, no wisdom teeth to worry about! Thankfully, my teeth have grown in relatively straight though. The only problem with them (that I don't actually care about) is that all the ones on the bottom have shifted a bit to the right because of the whole baby teeth situation so that the top and bottom don't line up (I used to not be able to shut my mouth all the way because of this, but that went away!) I do my best to keep up with the hygiene since I saw a documentary on Appalachia that made me pretty paranoid... I usually brush twice a day and I floss a few times a week, but my diet is basically candy and ice cream (I'm a vegitarian so I'll use that as an excuse), but I don't drink soda. I probably will not be able to see a dentist until I'm like 25 and get a real job with insurance and stuff or else until I wind up in the emergency room with all my teeth smashed out in a horrible accident (state "insurance" only covers emergency dental... unless I pop out a few kids, then it'll cover more.) So, in five years should I expect 100 root canals and some sharp metal hooks scraping under my gums and therefore score some H before I go? Or will it be relatively cool and I'll just be chill?
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If it hurts to have sugar in your mouth, you are prob heading towards root canals, as is. Waiting too much longer will risk infections which would just be that much more nastiness, ya know? I suggest looking for a dental school in your area - I have no insurance, myself, and the only problem I have with the school is the speed. I don't complain while I'm there, though - it's a *student* working on me and the lack of speed is entirely safety measures to make sure he doesn't mess up my teeth, so complaining seems silly to me... Back on topic - University of Louisville clinic has a $90 up front requirement for all new students, but that is towards the charges incurred in first appointment(s) - comprehensive exam was free, I believe, and x-rays were not enough to take the whole $90. They just need proof of intention to pay bills, really... If you have bunches of cavities, you might look for licensing exams. That is the exams where the students who are graduating and the dentists who need a new license from a move get their licenses. My student isn't graduating till next year but he passed my files round and found three other people to use me this year, got five free fillings that way and he is eyeballing two 'defects' in my enamel that might progress to full cavities by the time he graduates. If you go to a clinic to start getting work and you are dead broke, you can ask for info on that kind of free dental work and/or request that the treatment schedule be spaced out enough to make the payments easier. Also, they do have payment plans - I haven't done them because I need a crown and I have to qualify as 'current' for them to put it on me, and I've gotten three different definitions on 'current'. So I just borrow money and stay ahead of the bill. But when my student offers appointments that are just a week apart he does ask if that is too close for the bills, and there is no penalty for refusing. U of L *does* require being available at least twice a month, but they just use that policy to penalize people who are actually wasting the students time by getting examined and then only showing up every now and then when the students really need reliable patient flow to practice. You mentioned you floss, which will make the students pretty sympathetic - really, they have spent a lot of time with their own faces rather close to nasty mouths of people who can't manage to brush before an appointment, if you are making an attempt right now dental school students will not give you an attitude about past mistakes since they deal with worse all the time. That is one of the upsides - the only comments I've gotten about past dental habits were jokes that acknowledged I've improved. And if you worry about needles, my student mentioned that they practice on EACH OTHER the various different injections before they reach the clinic. He's actually pretty awesome with a needle, and he *knows* which injections hurt more, because while he has no cavities he has had others sticking needles in his mouth. Sorry for wordiness, good luck with your teeth!
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