#using dental care

[medicalunprofessional]

play dentist

[mydutyistoobserve]

💉💊❤👩🏾‍⚕🏥

[dankmemes23]

[fisheito]

Wind: howls Garu: howls back

[dearqueerdeers]

so APPARENTLY me and my bestie have been drinking liquid different ways our entire lives.

I drink liquid out of a glass by putting my bottom lip and tongue on the bottom rim of the glass. The beverage flows over my tongue, then I swallow.

My bestie drinks liquid out of a glass by putting their bottom lip (only) on the bottom rim of the glass. The beverage flows through their bottom teeth, into the bottom of their mouth (under their tongue), then they swallow.

[kaxenart]

When my sister got wisdom tooth surgery she acted loopy and weird.

When I got my wisdom tooth surgery, I DIDN'T HAVE A SINGLE SHENANIGAN. I DON'T EVEN HAVE A DRUNK DOODLE TO SHOW FOR IT. (For science, I want to see how I draw on drugs. It's honestly pretty boring compared to what I do on a daily basis. The real drugs is the friends we made along the way!).

Also I hate all the websites that are like YOU'RE DOOOOMMMMMMEED IF YOU DON'T REMOVE YOUR WISDOM TEETH BEFORE YOU'RE 25. THE SURGERY WILL BE TOO COMPLICATED AND YOU MIGHT LOSE YOUR FACE. (??????)

Conclusions From Real Life For Sanity of the Anxiously Inclined:

I think that "do it before you're 25" thing is a dentist scam to try to rush the portion of the population that don't have really fucked up wisdom teeth to get surgery done. Because sometimes it really does just grow in fine. Based on my family, it's a 50/50 gamble lol

Later removal is not some crazy jump in complexity. I have been told this by multiple dentists now. Most of the complexity is just sedating you correctly. If you're a stingy bastard who fears neither pain nor dental tools, local numbing is an option for cheaper.

If you tried your luck and lost and do have a fucked up wisdom tooth (or all of them), you should probably deal with it before you get a deep fucked up cavity that is a ticking time bomb for complications like fucking up your jaw bone or a severe infection.

Take care of your Stupid Luxury Bones.

[fine-dining-and-breathing]

my hysa is intended to be my emergency fund. I'm almost at my goal amount right now, and once I'm there I intend to just add a bit of money to it once a month (because line go up feels good I guess)

but I'm debating if I should open up a second hysa at another bank or credit union to save for like, long term fun goals? Like maybe a trip to Japan? It'll be years from now, at minimum, if it ever happens at all.

but right now my money is split between my emergnecy fund, my checking account, my brokerage, and a cd that i'm closing out in february.

in my checking account I try to maintain a base level of "what is necessary to pay my bills" and then treat that amount as if its zero. That way I have a cusion in the event something comes up, and don't need to risk waiting for a transfer to go through.

there's not necessarily any harm in putting all my unspoken for money into my emergency fund. But if it is supposed to be my emergency fund, I'd rather not get into the habit of pulling from it for fun things whether they be large or small.

So maybe a second savings would be a good idea

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jessica Glenza at The Guardian:

A bill introduced by the US senator Bernie Sanders would dramatically expand access to oral healthcare by adding dental benefits to Medicare and enhance them in Medicaid, public health insurance programs that together cover 115 million older and lower-income Americans.

Despite Americans’ reputation for the flashy “Hollywood smile”, millions struggle to access basic dental care. One in five US seniors have lost all their natural teeth, almost half of adults have some kind of gum disease and painful cavities are one of the most common reasons children miss school. “Any objective look at the reality facing the American people recognizes there is a crisis in dental care in America,” Sanders told the Guardian in an exclusive interview. “Imagine that in the richest country in the world.” Nearly 69 million adults and almost 7 million children lack dental insurance. For those who have insurance, costs are often opaque and high. Multi-thousand-dollar bills are so common that the nation’s largest professional organization for dentists, the American Dental Association (ADA), signed an exclusive partnership with a medical credit card company. In 2019, more than 2 million Americans went to the emergency room for tooth pain, a 62% increase since 2014, and a crisis of affordability pushed an estimated 490,000 Americans to travel to other countries such as Mexico for lower-cost dental care.

“The issue of dental care is something we have been working on for years,” said Sanders. “It is an issue I think tens of millions of Americans are deeply concerned about, but it really hasn’t quite gotten the media attention it deserves.” Sanders said he had seen how poor dental health can affect every aspect of a person’s life – he described constituents who cover their mouths when they laugh or have been turned down for jobs because of missing teeth. Sanders said he recognized the importance of the issue by attending town halls in his home state of Vermont, “and learning how hard it is to get dental care, how expensive it is and [how] dental insurance [is] totally inadequate”. “Having bad teeth or poor teeth is a badge of poverty,” said Sanders. “It becomes a personal issue, a psychological issue, an economic issue as well.”

Sanders’ bill expands dental coverage by adding comprehensive benefits to Medicare; incentivizing states to improve dental benefits through Medicaid; and providing dental benefits to veterans through the Veterans Administration. Additionally, the bill would attempt to tackle some states’ dentist shortage by creating student loan forgiveness programs for dentists who practice in underserved areas, and increasing funding to non-traditional places to see dentists, including at community health centers and schools. Expanding dental coverage is exceedingly popular – recent polls show 92% of voters support the proposal, including an overwhelming majority of Republicans. Sanders said his proposal was good policy and “very good politics”.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has proposed a bill called the Comprehensive Dental Reform Act that would dramatically increase coverage for dental care for Medicaid and Medicare patients.

[blirpus]

went to the dentist today and i have no cavities, no gum infection and no gum "pockets" plus i got my plaque removed and it feels so nice. everything is as good as can be considering how much ive fucked up my teeth over the years. idk why but i was kind of expecting the worst but it really isnt that bad🥹 who knew that taking care of yourself pays off

[br1ghtestlight]

ive had the displeasure of having my dental (and physical and mental but yknow) health neglected for the first 19 years of my life so now im very serious about dental health. bcuz it's expensive as HELL to fix your teeth. and i dont wanna end up wearing dentures at 35 like my mom and grandparents 😭😭

[ashersbraincell]

Fun fact about me: when I was a kid, I was one of those kids who’s baby teeth grew in late asf and thus wouldn’t budge by the time that my adult teeth started growing in(so I had to have my baby teeth manually removed by a dentist sequentially when each adult tooth grew in >m<). But that’s not the fun fact!!! This is atleast a little common to some capacity I think!!!

Where it actually gets interesting is the fact that I wasn’t born with one of my adult teeth at all(if you didn’t know, babies are born with both their baby teeth and adult teeth ready to go in their gums), and thankfully the corresponding baby tooth never became wobbly or damaged. So. As I grew up, and my jaw changed etc, in comparison to my adult teeth, I now have this silly little smol baby tooth hanging out there too

[scarycranegame]

people who think mouthwashing is about rape clearly haven't played how fish is made/the last one and then another

[adamsvanrhijn]

honestly the most life changing living advice i have ever gotten from this website is to have a manual toothbrush, an automatic toothbrush, floss, and mouthwash on your bathroom counter and you should try to use at least one at least once a day. i floss more than i brush now

[dearmrsawyer]

hello! it has been a long time since i've talked through my day! this one had such a big turnaround that i needed to document it, mostly for myself.

i had an appointment with a 'root canal specialist' today bc i had my first app with my new dentist a couple of weeks ago and his xray revealed an abscess wow how fun :) i couldn't feel it bc that tooth has a decade old root canal so there are no nerves to reveal there is anything going on!! fun!!!! he's a super nice dentist, i like him but he made me very panicked lol he was showing me how close it is to my sinuses on the xray. so he was like 'go see this guy asap' bc he wanted to know whether there was a chance my old root canal could be redone or if i'd have to get the whole tooth removed/an implant, all for the low low price of $5-6000 🙃 but obviously you can never see specialists asap!!! so i've been walking around for 2.5 weeks with dread/phantom pains that by the time i saw him the infection would've spread and idk had catastrophic consequences??? and then today when i went there was CONSTRUCTION at the turn i needed to make and the road was closed and i was like i don't know how to get there from another street??!?!?!??! i spent 10 minutes driving through suburban streets and my navigation kept trying to take me back to the original route with the closed road, and its the middle of town so there was nowhere i could just temporarily stop and look at the map, and i called them almost crying to let them know i'm coming but i might be late bc i just can't navigate these streets jegjkdgkjdkg

anyway i MADE it, i think i parked in another business's parking lot and just hoped they didn't care lol and then the lady at the desk was like 'our other specialist will have to see you bc the guy you're here for isn't here' so i was feeling uhhhh not good after my dentist talked him up so much. AND my dentist didn't send over my electronic referral and i had LITERALLY been stressed that he would forget to do exactly that for the whole 2.5 weeks oh my god, thankfully they didnt even seem to care. but then as i was filling out the paperwork in the waiting room 'no judgment' came on, and then 'wolves' right after??? and i was like this seems deliberate to try and calm me down 😂 and when the substitute specialist called me in he was so extremely calming and talked me through my options, one of which is indeed to try and redo the root canal bc he's confident he can, it would still cost a lot but wayyyyy less. he also said i could 'do nothing' (which is obv risky, and i would never do nothing, but that made me realise my infection is not about to bust through and spread across my sinuses any second, one fear down!). he was just softly spoken and super relaxed and he made me feel like this was not in fact a crisis and said i could go and think about what i wanted to do, and just call for an appointment when i decided. and then when i went out to pay 'i want to write you a song' was playing 😭 i asked the receptionists if there was a 1d fan in the house and one of them said it must just be a random playlist on spotify, so this was all a complete coincidence????? i told them i was enjoying it very much.

anyway long story short i had already taken the rest of the afternoon off work to go work in the garden, but figured there was a good chance i'd be so down about an unexpected and immiment $5000 hit that i wouldn't want to do anything, but i drove home feeling extremely reassured that i had options and i was not on the clock to decide, and also very relaxed by 1d playing in the background the entire time. i have also been extremely stressed that i would need to take the next step asap and this would be such a bad time as mum is working 50 hour weeks right now bc of the referendum, so i am on caring duty with nonna/nonno anytime we don't have carers here. but there's time! i had a v good afternoon in the garden after all!

[yeahlikethebird]

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[magnetothemagnificent]

I have a question about oral care/hygiene: does shaving teeth actually do anything for hygiene or is it purely aesthetic? A lot of my friends had it done to them without being asked for consent first and I was wondering if you knew anything about why that happens

The only times it's actually necessary is if a tooth has an abnormally sharp edge, either congenitally or due to trauma, and it's cutting the tongue and/or gums; or if the tooth is shaped in a way that affects a patient's bite and needs to be reshaped; or if it's to fit a tooth for a crown, brace, bridge, or denture.

While it shouldn't hurt, filing enamel is literally stripping away at the enamel, weakening the tooth overall. It really shouldn't be done for purely cosmetic purposes, because once you start to chip away at a tooth, that's tooth structure you're never getting back, and it's important to keep your teeth as healthy and in your mouth for as long as possible.

I don't know if your friends had this done by a dentist or someone else, but either way, it should never be done without a patient's consent.