Oh, woe!
First a bridge came unglued. Then I got an appointment with my old dentist in another town, who now has moved, and couldn’t be found once I got there.
So I got ‘worked in’ by a local dentist I found on the internet…and they (quite reasonably) took xrays and discovered an abscess. Oh, joy. Extract, root canal with a new bridge (4000.00), or implant? If an implant, five of them, because of the bridge. And they’re costlier than the bridge.
Well, I decided to spring for option B. And faced a root canal with a completely unknown dentist who sort of specializes in root canals. It truly was an abscess: I asked to see the xray.
Today I went in for the procedure, and I’ve had worse discomfort from fillings. Wonderful job, very fine doc, very meticulous, and the best news—he was able to temp-glue the old bridge back in, and it looks as if that 36-year-old bridge is going to work fine. The doc said that bridge was a real work of art, to have lasted this long, in that shape.
So I’ve got a sore jaw and am reduced to soup, but that’s from the strain of a long procedure, no pain from the tooth.
IF I’m not going to have to spend for a new bridge, I may have another one looked at. I had a bad accident back in the 80’s, pitched headfirst over the handlebars on a downhill—the city had installed one storm grate the wrong way, and I dropped a tire into it after a car veered over at me (stupid joke—and when I fell, they ran like rabbits). The result for me was a lot of dental work and jaw troubles. But the good news is—my original dental team were aces. And the fact that this one didn’t hurt at all, except the pesky little xray tabs, says I’ve found another good one.
That’s great; many doctors and dentists only see dollar signs when they see a new patient. They have no idea if you are going to stick with them, so it’s really potluck on if you get someone who takes the Hippocratic oath seriously, and doesn’t only see you as an open wallet.
We had a bout of fleas with los gatos; Zorro was chewing off her fur trying to get the little pests. The vet prescribed a new topical flea med that seems to have done the trick, but in the meanwhile, we moved a litterbox to a new location, and someone has been expressing displeasure (or crabbiness, we don’t know) by studiously missing. Finding a copious puddle when you are getting ready to go out to dinner is no fun. I put an old dropcloth under the box.
Cats are pretty conservative when it comes to change. Change what they eat, or where, or what’s in the litter box, and you have an unhappy cat.
I’ve had pretty good success with a spray called Knockout E.S. It contains a growth hormone mimicker (metheprine) that fools the fleas’ bodies into thinking they’ve reached maturity. Larvae don’t become pupae, pupae don’t become adults, adults are sterile…..we had a horrid infestation when I lived in San Diego, found it at the Vet’s office, used it and within 6 weeks, no fleas. You can spray it directly on the pet, on the places where fleas would inhabit, or lay eggs, etc.
Root canals & crowns are certainly expensive. My last one, 18 months ago, had to be done by an endodontist as my regular dentist didn’t feel able to tackle it. The placement of the tooth was difficult. I just about croaked at the price. However I did get to watch an extremely attractive Latino with a charming manner while he worked on my mouth through a microscope.
I’ve been having work done for a bridge, 22-27, i.e. all for lower incisors with the canines as anchors, for nearly a year now. I decided I couldn’t afford a “commercial” dentist so I’ve been going to Oregon Health Sciences University School of Dentistry, where graduate students (the one that did most of the work just “flew the coop”) have been doing the work. The instructors had a difference of opinion about method, but a conservative approach won out. Thursday I’ll go in for a fitting of the final, metal bridge “frame”. It’ll have cost something like half the estimate I got from the previous dentist I saw. Being “slow” has probably been a benefit, being an Aspie with strong reactions to being rushed, even bullied.
I’ve got to get a tooth extracted, have a bridge emplaced, and two crowns on the adjoining teeth, and my share of the cost is $1,639. My dental insurance caps at $1,300 per year, and that gets wiped out by one or two visits to the endodontist who has to do the root canal work. If I can get my credit card down to a reasonable balance, maybe I can afford to get the procedure done, especially since the tooth my dentist wants to extract broke in half a couple of months ago, and while it’s not causing pain “NOW”, it has in the recent past. The longer I wait, the harder it will be to get it done, I’m thinking. But, money concerns are always the deciding factor when you’re retired…
At least you have dental insurance. Since the law says you have to have car insurance, and I can’t afford the premiums on both, I have no dental insurance.
Our dentist has a payment plan. Nothing to do with insurance, everything to do with service; you should ask yours.
A big non-Takata airbag recall was announced a couple days ago. Apparently, most of the danger is in hot, humid areas. Unlike the Honda recalls, this is for side airbags. Some Prii are being recalled. You can check your Toyota VIN, Vehicle Identification Number, here:
http://www.toyota.com/recall
(Easiest way to copy down your VIN plate is take a picture, of course.)
I also have a site for Honda if anyone wants it. I’m on my third steering wheel inflator. Sigh. No recall for me…yet.
Thanks for the link: our model is not affected, by that. We’re a Prius V. 😉 I have an even easier way to check the VIN—a nice file folder having all our car paperwork in one little elastic-closed bundle.
I’m a big fan of dental schools. I go to the University Of California San Francisco school and I’m thrilled with them. I have some serious non dental health problems that mean that care has to be taken with my dental care. They’re great. Here in California the “students” are out of state dentists training for the very tough California certification.
And the costs are very reasonable. I recommend dental schools highly.
I have a mouth full of root canals. You have my empathy/sympathy. Still, a root canal beats losing a tooth.
Me too – XRays look interesting with all the metal in my jaw.
What’s to complain about? Historically, most people my age were toothless. Remember Grorge Washington?
My Boston prosthodontist went digital with the X-Rays some years ago. Much less uncomfortable with the ‘tabs’ lower exposure -the tech doesn’t even stand out in the hall- and the results are instant so if retakes are needed he knows immediately. And copies can be emailed to my local dentist. A great improvement on the old method.
My dentist went digital about then, too. The digital x-ray equipment people need to make smaller head, though. Something that fits 6-footers fine is quite uncomfortable for those of us under 5 ft 6.
I happen to have the biggest tori (excess bony growth in the jaw, q.v.) in Oregon! Well, the left one anyway–the right was ground away in 2009 in a memorable periodontal procedure. 😮 Those thin, stiff tabs always used to cut into my gums! 🙁 Digital is better.
My deepest sympathies. I just had my first crown back in Feb. I never really had any problems till some one hit me in the face with a piece of metal on a construction site and cracked a tooth. I was on active duty at the time, so went to a military dentist. They did a good job.
Off topic: I have acquired a new family member. She’s a very young calico, very friendly, I’ve named her Cindy. She was found by a couple of friends on the other side of town, and they already have 5 cats, so asked if one of us would be interested.
I went up Sunday evening and took a look, she looked starved, but was eating. I sat down on the floor and called her, and she came over to me and let me pick her up and hold her. I guess we get along. She’s spending her “orientation period” in my bedroom until I get a chance to introduce her to the other three cats. The first encounters weren’t friendly on either side, so I’ll give it a few more days.
She’s got a vet appointment this afternoon for shots and tests and maybe see if she has either an ear infection or ear mites in her right ear.
Good on your new gato, she sounds cute. Let’s hope the acclimation process goes well and she is soon allowed to socialize with everyone else. We have gotten a new outside cat thrust upon us. According to his collar (yes, he theoretically belongs to someone), his name is ‘Spunky’; he’s an orange tabby, we guess about 6 mo. old, and is currently acting like a typical teenager: eating everyone’s food and hissing at them. He even growls at the inside cats through the screen door! One of these days, he’s going to catch one of the established cats at a bad time, and will get his ears shredded.
I am mostly a lurker here (haven’t posted in a loooooong time), but I had to jump in and wish you well with Cindy. I hope all works out with her and the existing rulers, er, cats. 🙂
I took her to the vet on Tuesday afternoon. The doctor says that she thinks Cindy is between 6 – 9 months old, but without being able to get a good look in her mouth, she doesn’t know for sure. Cindy was getting very restive and didn’t want to cooperate much. When the doctor took the blood sample, that didn’t sit well with Cindy, but the worst indignity was trying to check for intestinal worms. The vet tech and I were both holding Cindy, and the doctor had a hand on her, too. I was the only one who got claws into flesh, though. She got her leukemia vaccination, as well as rabies vaccination. No evidence of heartworms or leukemia. No intestinal problems, either. The doctor doesn’t know if she’s pregnant, it might be that she’s in early stages, or just lost her litter. She’s got a bruise around one nipple, which leads me to think she might have lost her kittens. As young as she seems to be, she probably didn’t have enough milk, or just didn’t know what to do, seeing that she was living outside. She weighed in at just under 6 pounds, and I’m sure she’ll pack on the weight with a decent diet. I don’t restrict how much she’s getting right now, she’s doing well on the premium cat food I feed the other cats.
I’ll take her back to the doctor in a few weeks to have her spayed, if she’s not pregnant. If she is pregnant, I’ll wait until after her kittens are weaned. I don’t know what I’ll do with extra kittens, but I just have an aversion to aborting them.
Cindy sounds good. Hope all goes well.
Heh, Chondrite, here’s hoping the teen terror learns some manners before he gets his butt handed to him by some cat who won’t put up with that nonsnese.
My two are still fine, as black and white as ever, and 10 and 6 later this year. Smokey *still* has Goober buffaloed into thinking he can’t get on the bed and stay with me. My attempts to inisist otherwise, bringing Goober back in and putting him on the bed, didn’t help, so I’ve let Goober life with it. I don’t know how else to convince them. (I’m going to launch another try tonight, since it’s been weeks like this now.) They’ve decided they don’t like the moist cat food I got last, but they’ve got to make do anyway. I can’t let it go to waste. I will note what it is and avoid it for a while, though.
Hah, it’s been so long since I’ve had a cat who wasn’t black, or black and white, I wouldn’t know what to do. The previous two were brownish tabbies. Funny, they don’t ever change their coats! 😀 You’d think cats would be fashion conscious. 😀 :laughs:
Spunky has worn out his welcome. This afternoon he was being the usual full of himself, and saw Spot, the smallest and most retiring of the outside cats, waiting for dinner. Despite being scolded and even grabbed, he shook loose and took off after her. He chased her all over the back yard and up the neighbor’s tree, growling as he went. When he returned, there was a squirt bottle waiting for him. I will not be putting out food when he is here or encouraging him to stay around the yard because he has proven to be a bad neighbor.
Quite off-topic, but another case of fiction presaging fact, I’m sure all SciFi addicts will will recognize the story getting an oblique reference here (love it!) 🙂 :
“CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) – Astronomers have discovered a planet unlike any other ever found, one that loops widely around one star that is locked in a gravitational embrace with two others in a triple-star system, creating a curious celestial ballet.
The findings, published on Thursday in the journal Science, challenge current notions about what makes a planetary system viable.
With three stars in the system, the massive planet would experience triple sunrises and triple sunsets during one season and all daylight in another. Since the planet’s orbit is very long, each season lasts for hundreds of years.
“Depending on which season you were born in, you may never know what nighttime is like,” lead researcher Kevin Wagner of the University of Arizona said.“
Nightfall!
One weird orbit I think is stable is, a planet slingshots around star one, having a hot Summer; it goes far, far out to a cold Winter…while star two rotates closer to it; whereupon, it has a hot Summer slingshotting around star two; then another cold Winter; rinse and repeat. Really, it’s not much harder than living in the temperate zones of Earth.
If you think about it, seasons and night and day aren’t really common, and require a lot of adaptation from life. Existence around a tidally locked planet is a lot more convenient. No steering leaves, migration, hibernation; a stable environment….
I was thinking Three Body Problem, myself.
That was my first thought, also – although apparently this planet is in a long elliptical orbit and much more stable.
Asimov’s short story Nightfall actually was about a binary star system but that was the story I automatically thought about too.
I was thinking Rocannon’s World by LeGuin.
Re: Orbits in binary systems.
As far as stable orbits go, I once saw an illustration. Planets can be in stable orbits around either star if: 1) the planet is close in, and 2) the binary partner is relatively distant, as many are. Or the planet can be in a stable orbit about the barycenter the stars themselves orbit if: 1) the stars are relatively close together, and 2) the planet is relatively distant. In either case it devolves from being a three-body problem to a possibly perturbed normal orbit. I mean, after all, the Earth’s orbit is slightly perturbed by Jupiter.
While everything in life is relative, I’m happy to hear the good news about the dental work…
Good news indeed. I hope the rest goes as well. A good dentist is worth his weight in gold, in my experience.
If you haven’t seen it, John Scalzi’s blog for July 11th has a photo of one of their nearly grown kittens, Spice. She’s doing that determined hunter look, walking into the camera. Got the heroic attitude down pat. — All she needs is a voyage-ring or two and some good silk breeches. Seriously, that expression would work perfectly on a hani crewwoman’s face.
Well, this has been an entertaining morning. We found Spunky’s owner, and he will be getting returned to her whenever he starts with the ‘rude teenager’ routine. Either that, or the hose if he’s really bad, which he was this morning. Chased both Spot and Froofy away from breakfast, then settled in to eat it himself. He got hosed.
20 minutes after Spunky was run oft, a speeder came down our street, followed by a mess of sirens, then followed by a big ‘ka-whump!!’ from the main artery a block down. Speeder was apparently on the run from the fuzz, cut right onto the main, and ran straight into the back of a refrigerator truck. He then bailed out of the car and ran, leaving a Ford Taurus with its engine block in the firewall and a very tangled traffic jam. If he was still mobile after that, he either had lots of adrenaline, or was on something. He’s still at large in the area; I suspect he’s hiding in the overgrown vacant lots nearby. For several minutes, I was at our corner, directing people onto side streets and around the accident.
On the brighter side, I finally heard from our administration after many alarums and excursions, and beginning at the end of the week, I am the new head librarian for our local branch. Yay!
Congrats on the new position, Chndrite!
So the head librarian manages the jars of talking heads, while the book librarian…. Oh. Right, then. ROFL.
Chondrite, many congratulations!
… and the lead Hibernian sits on a shelf, and is painted green? Couldn’t resist. And yes, congratulations, Chondrite!