I seriously hate dentists.I seriously hate dentists who walk out of the room just because the patient is telling them that her tooth hurts in a place different than the one they are pointing out even worse.
I went to get my teeth cleaned this morning. I haven't had them cleaned in awhile because I haven't had the insurance or the money to pay for it. However, I got a coupon in the mail last week from a new dentist that had opened up across from the Target shopping center. For only $59, I could get an exam, a cleaning, and x-rays. I thought that wasn't too bad of a deal, given what my deductible would be if I went the insurance route. I temporarily forgot that age-old axiom "you get what you pay for."
What did I pay for?
For starters, I paid for a bladder that went into overdrive the minute I sat opposite the water wall feature in the waiting room. Water and small bladders do not mix. Water, small bladders, and hygienists who take 30 minutes to gossip with one another before cleaning your teeth mix even less. I actually had to ask the hygienist to stop cleaning my teeth halfway through just so I could run across the hall to the bathroom. If I had waited any longer, I would have either been in tears or sitting in a warm, golden puddle of my own urine.
I paid for my blood pressure to be checked, something no dentist has ever done before and I doubt will ever do again. Too bad they didn't check it before I left. They might have been surprised at how much it had gone up.
I paid to have the hygienist grab my tongue with a gauze pad and flip it over. Again, that was a new and not-so-tasty experience. I guess the fact that she didn't say anything afterward means that I don't have tongue cancer.
I paid to have the hygienist tell me I had substantial bone loss in the back of my jaw. Really? How come my other dentist--the one I went to for over four years--never mentioned it? Did I somehow magically lose all that bone in the two years since I have been to see him, or is the truth closer to something like my sinuses are making my gums swell back there and therefore make it seem like the bone is a lot deeper down the gum? (FYI, I pretty much keep a sinus infection these days so my guess is that the latter situation is more likely than the former.)
I paid to have both the hygienist and the dentist lecture me on my alleged "aggressive teeth brushing." I will tell you what I told them. My gums have been receding pretty much my entire life. It's genetic. My mom's teeth and gums looked exactly like mine. Same size, same color, same amount of recession, same everything. My dad's gums, meanwhile, were so bad that he had to have all his teeth pulled and replaced with false ones. In other words, my mouth is subject to a DNA double whammy. It doesn't matter how gently I brush my teeth; my gums are going to continue to recede until I have to have a gum graft. It's a fact that I have come to accept. I just get tired of every time I see a new dentist, I get the same "brush in gentle circles" lecture. No one ever believes me that I already brush my teeth in that manner and that I never brush aggressively from side to side.
I paid to get a second lecture on the fine art of flossing. Once again because of the receding gum line I can never get anyone to believe me that I don't just go up and down with the floss; I also clean the gum line. When I tell them that, the dentists and their hygienists all look at me like I'm on The Steve Wilkos Show and they're about to reveal the big, bad results of my lie detector test. I am not lying. I floss properly. My gums just don't care.
I paid for an x-ray that cut off the part of the molar that contained the brown spot that has been hurting me for months.
I paid to argue with the dentist for 15 minutes after he told me that the spot was not on my tooth or the x-ray, that the pain I was experiencing was from the receding gums, not from a cavity, and that the way he was going to treat it was with Sensodyne and Act mouthwash. Like with the flossing and toothbrushing situation, he refused to hear me when I said repeatedly, "The spot is neither near the gum line nor the valley. It's at the top of my tooth on the backside corner." He also refused to even consider filling the non-existent cavity. He told me I had to live with the mysterious spot for another six months, at which point he'd reassess the situation and decide whether he wanted to do a crown, not a filling. Sure, why do a $200 filling now when you can do a $1000 crown six months from now instead?
I paid for the jerk to leave the room when I verbally expressed my frustrations with his inability to see the brown spot and with his desire for me to continue living with dental pain. (No, I did not yell. I did not cuss. I simply asked, "Will the Act make it better or just stop the progression?" He answered, "It should stop it." I then said, "So if it's not going to make it better, then it's going to continue to hurt. Are you saying I'm supposed to keep hurting like this for another six months and quite possibly the rest of my life?" He didn't answer; he just said that that was his treatment plan, got up, and left. End of discussion.)
And, of course, I paid for a stupid doggie bag with samples of toothpaste, dental floss, and a toothbrush, a whopping $3 value at my local Dollar Tree.
What I didn't pay for was a second opinion. I called my old dentist, the one I should have gone to to begin with and paid full price for. The receptionist said it would be at least $75 for him to look at the tooth and take an X-ray of it, another good chunk of money I don't really want to spend but will if I have to.
So what do I do? Do I pay the $75 or spend the next six months trying to magically heal a cavity with Act mouthwash? I'm too pissed to make the decision myself right now. Maybe tomorrow I will have calmed down enough to decide whether another $75 is worth it.
In the meantime, I continue to wonder if the man would have behaved differently if I had insurance. It wouldn't be the first time a doctor--medical, dental, or otherwise--has treated the insured differently than the uninsured. Maybe he thinks he can better pay for those flat screens on the ceilings and walls if he overbills an insurance company than if he takes less money directly out of my checking account. Yeah, good luck with that. If he treats other new patients the way he treated me, I doubt he'll see them or their insurance companies for the full-price, followup cleaning in six months.
