Americans are getting dental implants more than ever — and at costs reaching tens of thousands of dollars. Experts worry some dentists have lost sight of the soul of dentistry: preserving and fixing teeth.
I have become incredibly skeptical of american dentistry. They can’t seem to get their act together on what’s actual necessary care and what’s just some shit they can charge out the nose for. I’ve drawn my personal line at wisdom teeth, which they will usually try to extract surgically regardless of whether it’s causing any problem or not. After the number of times I’ve had “no surgery is without risk” reinforced from both experience and medical doctors, that seems incredibly foolish. See also: Lasik
I had a dental surgeon tell me with a straight face that a non-problematic wisdom tooth with nerves wrapped around it should be taken out, and there was a very real possibility I’d lose feeling in my jaw for an indeterminate amount of time.
I know people who permanently lost feeling in parts of their face because of dental surgery (and that’s after a longish painful recovery) Risking that just to remove a non-painful, not even impacted tooth, is insane to me
Originally I had just 1 top one removed, I wanted to do top and bottom separately.
By the time I got around to the bottom one, it righted itself and was no longer dangerous to rip out. I cant even remember which ones I got out at this point, I know I only pulled 3/4. That’s how unproblematic the fourth was. I only got the other pulled because they were getting cavities from their bastard positioning.
The dental surgeons looked at me with disdain when I didn’t fund their car payment on unneeded work. Simply waiting made it go from “very risky” to non-issue and not a single dentist/surgeon thought of it as a possibility for me.
I remember hearing some people in California just have dentists in Mexico because of how utterly untrustworthy American dentistry is, idk about Canada however.
its also much cheaper to go abroad yeah. Canada I have no idea how quackish their dentists are but I believe they’re in the “teeth are luxury bones and therefore not covered” school of universal healthcare
That’s literally how Southern California operates, if you’re lower “middle” class you go to Mexico for your medication, dental, hearing, and eye. Usually things not covered by medical insurance.
I have become incredibly skeptical of american dentistry. They can’t seem to get their act together on what’s actual necessary care and what’s just some shit they can charge out the nose for. I’ve drawn my personal line at wisdom teeth, which they will usually try to extract surgically regardless of whether it’s causing any problem or not. After the number of times I’ve had “no surgery is without risk” reinforced from both experience and medical doctors, that seems incredibly foolish. See also: Lasik
Capitalism ruins everything
I had a dental surgeon tell me with a straight face that a non-problematic wisdom tooth with nerves wrapped around it should be taken out, and there was a very real possibility I’d lose feeling in my jaw for an indeterminate amount of time.
I told him leave it there and he was full
I know people who permanently lost feeling in parts of their face because of dental surgery (and that’s after a longish painful recovery) Risking that just to remove a non-painful, not even impacted tooth, is insane to me
I just remembered the second part of this story.
Originally I had just 1 top one removed, I wanted to do top and bottom separately.
By the time I got around to the bottom one, it righted itself and was no longer dangerous to rip out. I cant even remember which ones I got out at this point, I know I only pulled 3/4. That’s how unproblematic the fourth was. I only got the other pulled because they were getting cavities from their bastard positioning.
The dental surgeons looked at me with disdain when I didn’t fund their car payment on unneeded work. Simply waiting made it go from “very risky” to non-issue and not a single dentist/surgeon thought of it as a possibility for me.
I remember hearing some people in California just have dentists in Mexico because of how utterly untrustworthy American dentistry is, idk about Canada however.
its also much cheaper to go abroad yeah. Canada I have no idea how quackish their dentists are but I believe they’re in the “teeth are luxury bones and therefore not covered” school of universal healthcare
That’s literally how Southern California operates, if you’re lower “middle” class you go to Mexico for your medication, dental, hearing, and eye. Usually things not covered by medical insurance.
See also: Nonconsensual genital mutilation.
It completely ruined my life.