October 13th, 2012 in "Waiting for my Petrichor"

Today was a real nightmare. Dave and I finally have dental insurance so I made the scary decision to book an appointment with a dentist who specializes in TMJ. I knew I was going to hear very bad news because the last time I went to the dentist in Washington she was very concerned with the state of my teeth because of all the work I had done by a crooked dentist in California. Sure enough I had the same reaction with this dentist. It was a very high end place compared to what I was used to. She took some X-rays and pictures with this special camera and I saw everything on a screen above the patient chair. She immediately said she did not like what she was seeing and spent 40 minutes explaining everything that was wrong and all the things I needed to have fixed. It was very hard to listen to but I know I have to do this before anything gets worse. Basically my crooked dentist gave me a ton of unneeded root canals and according to the dentist they were all done so poorly that infections could occur underneath since they didn't go all the way down to the root. Then they way they put the crowns on was vey bad and my gums are swollen. She says I need to get all new root canals and then there is my bite. It is so severe that I need to get braces again if the ortho says I am a candidate for them. Once we get my teeth aligned properly the she can fix all of my crowns. She asked me what I was most worried about and I obviously said paying for everything. She reassured me that my dental insurance will pay for most of the work done in her office but warned that it may not cover ortho treatment. Dave looked into it and it might pay up to 1700 so that would be a decent down payment and I'd have to just make monthly payments. I am very scared of all the pain I am going to have to go through to finally get my teeth fixed but also excited. Once everything is fixed I will no longer be in daily pain and my TMJ will finally get better.