I’m from some country in the EU. We have a saying, half joke, half serious: You aren’t truly successful living abroad if you have to come home to fix your teeth. I guess it holds some truth.
Canada too!! Because apparently teeth and eyes aren’t part of the body for universal healthcare. Luxury bones indeed.
It’s always been so insulting. When you’re a kid and a teenager you can have the government’s insurance and then your parent’s insurance. But as soon as you are an adult that starts working minimum wage without any social advantages, you have to pay for the expensive dentist out of pocket. So lots of young people that are relatively poor will pass the beginning of their adult life without dental insurance, and avoid going there.
And if they’re lucky and evolve into the job market, they can eventually find an employer that offers dental insurance! With any luck they won’t spend more than a few years without insurance. Otherwise if they stay at minimum wage, they can also keep paying out of pocket, because it’s certainly not their retail job that will offer dental insurance.
No, I’m still not bitter at all about this experience. /s
At least this supposed to change eventually, thanks to the NDP.
I was lucky when I was cooking at a bar that the surfer/painter dentist down the road would let you pay in payments. Everyone at the bar went to him. He did good work too.
Canada has a national dental plan now.
https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/dental/dental-care-plan.html
Yes, I know. We have dental coverage from my husbands work, luckily, as we would make just a bit too much combined to be able to take advantage of it.
The moment robotic and/or 3D flesh printed limbs get viable, sewing back your clean cut limbs will be a luxury too, with “economic” options of fake limbs that can be put on the stump, since “you can always just ask your boss very nicely to give you a call center job instead”.
Girlfriend and I just paid about $10k to fly out to Costa Rica to get her a full set of crowns. Easily would’ve been $40k to do it in the States. Another good looking option was to drive to Mexico.
I am planning a move to San Antonio, and the biggest determining factor for me has been proximity to Mexican dentists. I have fucked teeth. My bottom wisdom teeth came in laying down like battering rams and crushed the back 4 teeth on both sides, completely destroyed them. I had no dental insurance and no ability to pay out of pocket, so I just had to deal with the pain. My mom managed to find a dentist to prescribe me Vicodin while it was happening, but that was the extent of what we could get done. Since then, I’ve had several abscesses because of it, and had to have several removed. I still need a few removed and implants or something. I brush my fucking teeth, I don’t understand what the problems are. But I’ll be happy to be near to cheaper dentists.
The type of food you eat can determine your mouth’s bacteria biome, which none of us had any fucking way of knowing, other than pure chance.
Streptococcus Mutans trives on refined sugars that are available to us in modern times. They create a biofilm around your teeth that traps the bacteria itself, along with it’s acid byproducts.
They eventually wear down your enamel, and other bacteria start feeding on the softer dentin within. The acidic environment kills off the original Streptococcus Mutans bacteria.
Isn’t that why we brush our teeth, though? Like… What am I doing wrong? At this point I wish I could convince a dentist to pull all of my teeth, including the healthy ones, and give me dentures. I’m 34, and I don’t smile, I don’t eat out with friends, I don’t do anything that may show my teeth, because I’m missing a front tooth and I look like some cartoon hillbilly. I hate it so much.
You probably just won the bad teeth lottery. Other than that, coffee and other acidic foods also wear out teeth.
And dental insurance SUCKS.
I had a dental plan at an old job that was 24 dollars a pay period, and the annual coverage limit was $500.
I have “good” dental coverage that claims to pay a decent percentage of costs, but it’s of “reasonable and customary costs”. We live in a high cost of living state and it’s just not reasonable. They never seem to include the bus ticket to Mississippi to find someone willing to do it that cheaply.
…… as a parent paying for yet another set of braces where insurance covers “up to 50% of reasonable costs” or more realistically about 20%
I think this is also worldwide
In Italy healthcare is Free but dental isn’t included.
In my city there’s a free service for dental emergencies but it’s open from 8 am to 8.30 am so that means if you didn’t camp outside the door at 3 am it’s already full
Hungary used to be just like that, but it lead to people dying of complications, so it had to be undone, but not for replacing teeth, because that will surely lead to children eating sweets instead of fruits, and of course adults won’t buy Brandname™ electric toothbrush and toothpaste (it lead to people in general avoiding dentists like the plague due to “fear of having your teeth pulled with no way of replacing them”).
for THIRTY MINUTES???
LOL when I noticed the time range I had the feeling like “we’re contractually obligated to offer that service but we don’t actually want that”
How many people can be done in 30 minutes? Only extractions without anesthesia maybe? 🤔
i imagine they line them up and run down the line with some kind of swiss army knife of unsanitized dental tools.
yeah this is fucked.
I had a wisdom tooth go fucky on me. ‘Impacted’ - thing was fucking sideways, and rotted out. A nightmare, couldn’t chew on my right side at all. Was lucky enough to be living in a blue state that offered dental for Poors™ when it happened - they were willing to cover an impacted tooth at the local hospital. They jabbed the world’s biggest needle into my jaw, and yanked it out. Didn’t feel a thing at the time (other than the needle, which was like getting jabbed in the bone), though I spent the next month in agony once the anesthesia wore off.
They wouldn’t let me take it with me after they extracted it, said it was a ‘biohazard’. Wish I’d pocketed it anyway when they weren’t looking.
Correction: you can have veneers over your rotten teeth.
Amerikuh fuck yeah! 🇺🇸
Or good genes. I haven’t been able to go to the dentist in 25 years and I still have them all, and no tooth pain.
I went to the dentist for the first time in my 35 years on this planet. Didn’t go last year after one of my molars randomly broke because it didn’t hurt. Went earlier this month because the molar below it was bleeding and there was pus. I now no longer have wisdom teeth, still have that broken tooth, and am 1400 in debt for an extraction. I make 1200 take home on a good month. Love that.
All this to say, keep taking care of your teeth and hope you don’t randomly get an infection.
Family members all started to lose their teeth around the ripe old age of 25, they all had white teeth, so they got screamed at for not buying floss (which is only available at cities), and mouthwash.
Oh don’t worry. As I recently discovered, you can finance dental work now.
Give up sugar. That will make a HUGE difference. The sooner you do it, the better for your overall health, including your teeth.
What about my mental health ?!
Half way though a year long wait to get 2 more root canals. Maxed it out this year with 2 root cannals and a few fillings.
My dentist actually solved this by being so busy and the only dentist office for miles that my 6 month checkup happens every 13 months.
I dunno, I know folks who made the money and still didn’t manage to afford keeping their teeth.
Are there deadly dental consequences from ignoring tooth issues that don’t first involve lots of pain? Asking for a friend.
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