U.S. Healthcare is teh suck thread #1,985,272

All they did today was take a look, tell me what's going on, and write prescriptions. I have to go back on Tuesday to get started with extractions. Overall, about half my teeth need to come out and I'll need dentures. Which, I figured, but hopefully my insurance covers it. If not, I can probably manage if I go to a place with financing.

I know a guy that knows a guy that does implants for cheap.

Another aspect about healthcare which sucks but no one talks much about:

When I was at the dentist, everyone noticed I was feeling anxious, and I was. It seemed like they assumed I was feeling anxious about the dental work specifically, which I wasn't. While I'd prefer not to do it this way, if they wanted to remove all the bad teeth at once without any kind of anesthetic, I could probably get through it. I was anxious because I knew every time someone looked in my mouth, they were going to give me shit about the state of my teeth. And they did.

Same thing when I was in the hospital two years ago, a constant barrage of judgement because of life choices that lead to my being there and my failure to seek out medical assistance before it became an emergency.

Medical professionals: When someone comes in with an emergency, there's a good chance that they've made some bad decisions, or some tough decisions due to lack of resources. Being full of smug privilege every time someone isn't perfect about their healthcare makes them less likely to seek out medical aid in the future, and makes things worse overall.

At least you have the intelligence and self-awareness to own up to your own mistakes. Health professionals should not be passing judgement when treating someone with serious problems like yours. That said, I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of those people trying to save the lives of people who refuse to get a (free) vaccine that is wonderfully effective at preventing serious illness and/or death. What's more those same people are often accusing them of lying about what ails them and denying the clear evidence of their own foolishness. Under normal circumstances we have a right to expect sympathy and compassion from healthcare professionals. Right now that may be expecting something that they can't give. For what it's worth you have my sympathy and concern and I hope all goes well for you.

I'm with you, Kommander. My genetics also gave me bad teeth - or rather, very acidic saliva (that's what one dentist told me after I insisted I brush three times a day AND floss). Thankfully, most of my dental issues were resolved in the military. But, it was a civilian dentist who prescribed a toothpaste with about 4 times the amount of fluoride as regular toothpaste. He also gave me a sonicare toothbrush. 20 years later, I still use the sonicare toothbrush, but only brush once a day and use regular toothpaste. Haven't had a cavity in years.

If you can afford it, get nitrous oxide.

Laughing gas can make anything fun.

No lasting effects, drive right after.

Until very recently, every dental appointment, even just a cleaning, I had nitrous oxide.

Basically what I use, too. Probably find out that fluoride causes some horrible secondary effect, but it works on my teeth, so . . .

Oh, there's all kinds of conspiracy theories about ... fluoride adding some sort of plaque to one's "inner eye". I'm pretty liberal and and all about intuition and such things, but even I find that one difficult to accept.

The best dentist I found was a place in Rock Hill. One of the things I liked about it was they really did everything to make you feel comfortable, and there was no shame. It was the only dentist I ever went to that gave me a lot of options and understood I am not 5 years old and needed to be chastized.

I told a dentist off down here in florida because it was my grandmother's dentist, and they let her sit in the room as we were discussing what needed to be done. I had taken her for a cleaning and was getting myself evaluated for a huge amount of pulls and root canals. Now I have the dentist woman and my grandmother fucking with me over my teeth. I told the woman I wanted my grandmother gone as I am the patient and over 40, and she said no I needed to hear this. I asked her why she would stress out a patient even worse with all this shit, and that if I do not want some spectator in the room they should not be there by law. She said she did not care.

I popped in a huge way and left the people in the waiting room with a number of things to think about, and probably a good education on how to curse someone out. I walked home in the florida summer heat, and forced my grandmother to drive herself home not knowing where she was. Given what I need done we are talking thousands of dollars that place won't get.

You can do something about the dentist being uncomfortable, but I am almost positive dental school teaches you that admonishment and terror are the only way to set the patients up for extreme pain. I do not even want to put up with the dentist. I would rather hang out at a MAGA rally for the rest of my life than to ever see an orthodontist ever fucking again. It should be considered child abuse to force a kid to have braces. If they want to do that shit when they are older, that is awesome, but any parent who makes their kid get braces is fucking awful.

I have to give great respect to my endocrinologist's practice. He came highly recommended, and I was being a whiny little bitch about injecting insulin. I really hated needles, and they just brought me right through the injections. Even the free clinic and state health doctors did not shame me about my eating and showed me things were not terrible. It lulled me into a false sense of security so I said sure make the appointment with the health department counselor. Yup, it turns out words mean things and when you say the wrong ones as a health professional you can really set people off. For instance, when a person comes in and tells you they feel horrible constant pain that cannot be cured, and they feel like killing themselves so their family does not have to hear them scream anymore and the pain will stop, asking them to try to find out what they are living for and sending them home to think about where all the good things in life are is probably not something a brain mangler should be allowed to do. On a good note, my overdose did show me what drugs lowered the pain to livable levels.

I might have to try that one for the first needle.

They keep it flowing with a nose mask the whole time.

It's wonderful. Makes you look forward to a guy with hairy arms putting sharp objects in your mouth.

First round of extractions done. The first two teeth came out easily, the third one not so much. After struggling alternating between the chisel and pliers, she decided to get the drill out, and that's when the novocaine started wearing off. It hurt, but was well within my pain tolerance threshold. I was about to say that I'd need to be renumbed soon, but she reached for some thread to stitch things up, so I was good. It was far from being a pleasant experience, but not a big deal. I was not given any new prescriptions, so, hopefully Motrin 800s will be enough. As of now (left the dentist two hours ago), it's fine. The paper they gave me says if Motrin isn't good enough I can call in a day or two and get better stuff.

Also, I have a dental mirror so once I got home I took a look... that was a mistake; I was better off not knowing.