pulling teeth

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Walter Bright" <newshound1 at digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
news:ht9qvs$1po0$1 at digitalmars.com...
> Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> Good to know. In my case though, it's a wisdom tooth and, I would say 
>> that it's chipped, but it would be more accurate to say that half of it 
>> is gone, and what remains has two sharp edges (Kinda like a two-pronged 
>> fork pointing into the gums). It's not really causing much pain, but I do 
>> conciously try to chew on the other side (unnatural for me) because if I 
>> were to bite down on something the wrong way, then it would hurt like 
>> hell. Plus two dentists have already said it should go.
>
> My dentist told me they can now grind off the rotten top of a tooth and 
> add a new one attached to the original root. He told me that because one 
> of my molars has a growing crack in it. It's not a crisis now, but it will 
> be.
>
> I'd ask your dentist if he can just grind off the sharp edges, add a bit 
> of epoxy (they use epoxy now to fill cavities), and keep the root in 
> place.

Good stuff to know.

> Wisdom teeth can be hard to work on because they're so far back. Dentists 
> have a tendency to just pull them out rather than try to save them.

Yea, not surprised.

> Or maybe do a crown.
>

The second one did say something like "It wouldn't be worth it to do a 
crown". Seemed to be implying that would be overkill. But I may check into 
that and the other stuff though. I checked into the dental surgeons he 
recommended (apparently, ordinary dentists don't do teeth pulling, or at 
least not wisdom teeth, or at least not busted up wisdom teeth...I dunno), 
and it was around $700 at either place. That's including being put under, 
but I'm an absolute baby about these sorts of things: if I'm going to have a 
tooth pulled, I'm sure as hell not gonna be awake for it ;)

> > The first one did wanted me to get all the
> > wisdoms out. But the second one just said the one needed it and that the
> > other three didn't matter either way.
>
> Never go back to that first one.

Yea, never planned to. For various reasons actually. That one was actually 
the instructor of a student dentist that was working on me (because they're 
cheap and I'm poor ;) ). What she was telling me did seem slightly 
suspicious and I was convinced right then and there I needed a second 
opinion. Another thing though, is that this was part of a hospital system we 
have in Cleveland called University Hospitals, and I've had MAJOR problems 
with other offices in that system since then. I've always considered the 
other major system, Cleveland Clinic, to have absolute piss-poor management, 
but University Hospitals makes Cleveland Clinic look downright competent by 
comparison.

> I'd question the judgment of the 2nd in saying it "didn't matter" if they 
> were pulled.

Well, his exact words were more like "It's up to you if you want them 
pulled." Same thing, I suppose.

> I switched dentists when that one greedy jerk wanted to pull my wisdom 
> teeth, and found one that shared my views on preserving the natural teeth 
> as much as possible.

Yea, it can be difficult to find good people.