right, this will end well

So just seeing how this sounds:

Vacation with entire extended immediate family including: mother, both sisters, sister's husband, sister's MIL, sister's three kids, other sister's kid, mother's parents, me, and Child.

In one house on the beach.

Okay, that does in fact look terrifying when seen in print. I was wondering. There will be the gulf and a confection store that makes their own fudge. I'm clinging very hard to that right now.

Wait, there's more:

Child in his infinite wisdom at some point in the past--who knows when--broke a tooth but couldn't be assed to tell me or care until Friday evening, when the entire left side of his face rounded out not unlike a ripe tomato. At first--not knowing the tooth sitch because who hides tooth pain? How?--I thought it was an unexpected reaction to a topical anesthetic we keep for those times you bite the inside of your cheek or poke yourself in the gum with a pencil which no, isn't something that happens to me because I have much better hand/eye coordination than that and will fight any comment to the contrary to the death if necessary or whatever. It became very clear, however, that it wasn't and he reluctantly admitted maybe there was a tooth that was bothering him maybe a little, which you don't say, ye who has lost any vestige of facial symmetry.

Saturday morning was spent frantically googling for a dentist open on Saturdays who took walk-ins or emergencies or both. Found one, who didn't have a time open and then listening to me start to dissolve into tears--seriously, over-ripened tomato Child, but not that color, it was unsettling--offered to fit him and for that will love her until the day I die. Fortunately--and this is literal--Child was still in pain and the appointment was in less than an hour, and even so, it was a bad ten minutes getting him dressed and to the vehicle while he protested--with asymmetry growing by the moment--that it didn't hurt that much and he was fine (I actually stopped to stare at him disbelievingly, wondering if the infection reached his brain already).

We shall not speak of what we discovered of Child's unbelievable lack of interest in what goes on in his own mouth (I whine when I poke my gum with a pencil, fine, judge away), but anyway, surprise, he broke a tooth and it got infected and how. So we left with antibiotics, painkillers, and a very serious speech that if he starts having vision problems to go to the ER immediately, which was one of those surreal moments where I stare at Child and Child acts totally shocked about how nature and infection work.



Strangely enough, last night was different than Friday, better, yes, but different. While the painkillers and antibiotics were definitely working, the pressure was now a problem as well, which makes sense when the stabbing pain finally faded (which took a while), and it bothered him a lot. He was in no danger, I repeatedly told him, of having his cheek pop like a balloon, seriously, it looked worse before the dentist when he was saying no, it was fine, but he just wasn't convinced and repeatedly watched the mirror suspiciously. It was also very, very uncomfortable to lie down for too long, which I get; yes, pain is much worse, glad that was out of the way, but that powerful pressure sensation is really, really unsettling and uncomfortable in a completely different way than active pain.

To be fair to Child: when he was young, he had to have oral surgery on his back teeth that wasn't fun for anyone. The dentist was fine but not the most sensitive with kids and mistook condescending for kind, which even before the age of reason Child didn't take well, and the regular dentist was nice, he had a very bad habit of being disapproving and lecturey, which doesn't contribute to dentist-patient desire to talk or ever see them again. As I found out from a coworker, this problem is rampant among adults (her husband, for example, might very possibly die of sepsis if she didn't put her foot down).





My youngest sister had a condition officially diagnosed by a oral specialist that existed from birth that her teeth produced extremely substandard enamel, so she had to go a lot for regular cleanings and very careful examinations to catch any problems--and there were guaranteed problems--immediately. Also, she needed to be checked as her adult teeth came in because they might have the same problem (they did, very much, but it didn't show up immediately). This was in her dental records, by the way, so the regular dentist would know to do a very thorough exam each time and what he needed to look for so they could fix it very quickly. One useful side effect should have been that knowing ahead of time this was a losing battle would be concentrating all their efforts on making sure she could keep her adult teeth and not go through intense pain every time.

This worked very well for a while, until suddenly it didn't. Around age eight or nine, due to reasons beyond all of us, she was badly traumatized by his extended and rather less than kind lecture after he found--no surprise--one of her newest teeth would need a cap immediately. My mother found out about it when she went into genuine hysterics at the idea of visiting him or any dentist ever again and had the adult oral problems to back it up. Not that we're bitter still, but what the fuck?

As her son has the same problem, she was very proactive in a.) getting everything fixed fast and b.) not trusting the dentist a single moment with him and reminding him regularly during visits of the diagnosis written very clearly in his dental records and the long-term treatment plan (modern dentistry has made some definite advances since she was a kid, so there are far better options). She also never, ever leaves the room for a moment, which me and my middle sister also picked up with a vengeance.



After this adventurous weekend, I wonder why there aren't more dentists who decide to specialize in 'emergency' and 'weekends' only because seriously, they could probably make a killing doing nothing else. Every weekend dentist I found (very not many) wasn't just packed, but stacking them up in the waiting room. I didn't even bother with trying to negotiate my (annoying) insurance and paid cash, I was that desperate and from the looks of those waiting with me and Child, that wasn't unique. And why isn't there a Dental ER somewhere?

Note: Child still looks asymmetrical but much better, and is hilariously following almost exactly the dentist's prediction on how long it would take for the swelling to go down and the pain to taper off.

Comments

[nagasvoice]

Good luck to you both on this. Talk about a painful learning experience!

[lferion]

Of all the medical & ancillary eff-d upness in this country, dentistry is possibly the absolute worst. (The issues with mental health are differently effed, I think). I have never (and will never) understand why it takes separate insurance, for one thing.

I hope all is well Very Soon!

[green_grrl]

This! So much this. My mother is dealing with the fact that Medicare does not cover dentistry, with the single exception of pulling infected teeth (if you can find a dentist that will do the Medicare paperwork). Apparently it is actually a huge problem now that fixed-income elderly are literally starving from malnutrition (a MEDICAL problem) because they can't afford dentures and thus can't eat properly.

Also, fuck judgmental, lecture-y health care providers of every stripe.

[out_there]

Dentists are such a deeply personal thing. I know that Mum's had condescending lectures about oral hygiene (she brushes multiple times a day and never has bad breath, but gingivitis seems to run in the family -- her, her sister and her mother all have problems with it) but her biggest problem is a high pain tolerance. She's lost a few back teeth now due to infection inside the tooth and not being able to feel any discomfort until it hits infected-beyond-repair status and suddenly attacks the nerve with all possible force. After losing the first tooth, she knows the pain level and knows the tooth has to come out, but twice now she's had dentists who straight up refuse to believe that she can recognize the pain of Lethally Infected Tooth and have made her jump through hoops of X-Rays and very begrudgingly pulled the tooth -- only to later remark how amazingly infected it is when it comes out and they can see it.

Luckily, I'm not too much for dental problems. I mean, apart from grinding them and needing a mouth-guard, and those years of braces and having my wisdom teeth removed and the back molars needing to be re-sealed every so often.

*reads over that sentence* ...it's clearly a relative scale when it comes to dentistry.

[deird1]

Mum's had condescending lectures about oral hygiene (she brushes multiple times a day and never has bad breath, but gingivitis seems to run in the family -- her, her sister and her mother all have problems with it)

I was constantly getting the condescending lectures, despite never having cavities, because my gums would bleed and the dentist would infer from this that I clearly wasn't brushing my teeth thoroughly.

...turns out I have a blood clotting disorder.

[lilacsigil]

I was also constantly getting lectures about drinking too much soda (I don't actually drink soda, I think that's an assumption based on my weight) and not cleaning my teeth often enough to protect my enamel. Went to a new dentist, turns out I have a stone in my parotid gland and can't make enough saliva. GOOD TIMES.

[out_there]

I feel like I shouldn'tsnigger because that's a serious medical thing bit really, it just goes to show that the insulting and shaming doesn't help anything.

[niqaeli]

...yeah, that honestly looks more terrifying than last year was. (Wait was that last year, or the year before? I can't even remember how time works anymore. ANYWAY.)

Also, o h m y g o d CHILD. He just -- didn't mention. Until over-ripe tomato. OKAY. Dear Child, if you are reading this, infected teeth are generally always terrible bad no good experiences so in the future PLEASE DO SOMETHING ABOUT THEM WHEN YOU FIRST BREAK THEM. D:

[lilacsigil]

Working in a rural pharmacy in a town with no dentists, I have found that some people have terrifying levels of pain tolerance for their teeth. Got kicked in the face by a cow, lost 2.5 teeth at the gumline and now have a raging infection? Oh yeah, better make an appointment some time when calving season is over. I hope your son is doing well and his vision is still intact!

[musyc]

I feel for Child. I've had a broken molar for an unidentified length of time and this weekend it started going ow, and ow in my jaw, not the tooth. I have a 'sedate me before I'll even step in the building' fear of dentists ... and I've just requested a dental appointment. That's when the pain has gotten bad. I understand Do Not Want To Go.

[fyrdrakken]

So I had the whole thing where my mother quit making appointments for annual cleanings and checkups after my freshman year of high school, and my senior year I had three cavities with the one in the left rear molar having reached the stage where it was starting to hurt (and therefore was pretty much to the root canal stage), which was what made me tell my mother to make me an appointment. She felt I had outgrown the children's dentist and sent me to her own. He did a pulp cap on the rear molar to avoid doing a root canal, thankfully, but when I went back on a second visit for the third cavity on the other side of my jaw, he started drilling before the anesthetic had taken effect. When I shoved his hand out of my mouth, he threw me out of his office and told me never to come back. (Some time later, Dad needed a tooth fixed and went to the same dentist and announced thereafter that the man was a "fucking sadist," so I felt vindicated.)

I was sent back to the children's dentist for the final cavity and after that was taken care of I brushed maniacally and didn't set foot in a dentist's office again until my wisdom teeth started bothering me in my twenties. The dentist spent most of her time in the room with me examining my X-rays and talking to the hygienist instead of me, only addressing me directly when I told her that doing a root canal on that left rear molar was not. going. to. happen, and that if it was in such horrendous shape I'd have it pulled instead. (I had neither the money to pay for a root canal nor the ability to tolerate having her digging around in my jaw for that amount of time.) This drew a bitch session about how that was irresponsible dentistry and I should go do some shoddy place like Monarch Dental if I wanted that kind of crappy work that would end up costing me the upper tooth as well as the lower one. She also wanted to pull three of my wisdom teeth herself (in two separate visits) and send me to an oral surgeon for the impacted one (note that I was only in her office for a referral to an oral surgeon because I'd heard enough horror stories about wisdom tooth removal to insist on being knocked out for mine the way my mother had been for hers -- no fucking way was I not having the oral surgeon take all four out at the same time) and insisted that because I hadn't had a cleaning in so many years I needed a super deep cleaning that would involve numbing my mouth (and hence had to be done on two visits because she wouldn't numb more than half my mouth at a time -- I can't recall whether she said she could get my three easy-to-reach wisdom teeth at the same time, or whether those were intended to be separate visits). I got my referral for the oral surgeon, made appointments for the pair of cleanings -- and then wound up cancelling the appointments after I found out my insurance didn't really cover much in the way of dentistry and I had to max out a credit card to cover my wisdom teeth. (Her office kept calling me back to confirm the appointments I'd already cancelled, and misspelled my last name, and when I corrected the misspelling they didn't correct it in my records.)

So, yeah, another ten years without seeing a dentist, and then the left rear molar (with its massive filling in the top, and the rear corner missing due to either the rot caused by neighboring the impacted wisdom tooth, or else having been broken off by the oral surgeon while removing said tooth) broke a corner off, and then the filling fell out a few hours later, and I started calling around. Happily, I had the question to ask of the office staff I talked to, "Can I get the dentist to just pull the broken tooth, or will s/he insist on a root canal?" and eliminated the ones who said it would be the dentist's call as to what was required.

And that was how I found my current awesome dental practice. Multiple dentists, I'm not sure I've ever had the same one twice, but open seven days a week and as late as 8pm. In a low-budget part of town, so they're really used to patients having to make decisions based on what they can afford rather than on what's best for their teeth. And they treat lots of kids, so they're used to being patient with terrified patients. Removed the broken tooth, and from that point on I started in on the twice-a-year cleanings because I want to maintain the rest of my teeth. (Going to need an implant at some point for the gap left by the molar, indeed to preserve the upper molar that it's no longer meeting, but I'm delaying on that. Need to find out if my insurance will cover it -- I do indeed have dental coverage. Need to find out if having the root thing implanted in my jaw is something that can be done under sedation.)

ETA: The thought I keep having is that dentists share a lot of unpleasant traits with obstetricians, in that some of them have a decided lack of patience with people who object to having metal instruments inserted into tender orifices, there may be an attitude that it's the patient's own damned fault what's having to happen now because they didn't floss regularly/use a condom, and it's a field where a sadist can get away with a lot because it's "necessary" and people expect some pain to occur.

Dear God

[pudacat]

And...this is why I love my boss, who's a dentist, and working with her. No lecturing, no guilt, no shaming. I swear over half our practice is made up of phobics and disgruntled, or justifiably angry, ex-patients of other dentists.

Be glad they didn't insert an external drain, or hospitalize him, since his swelling was so bad. Of course, he'd probably love the grossness of those options.

Sorry for the Child's traumatic experience. We have a 22 year old patient who is still phobic about coming, due to a horrible visit to aother dentist when he was 6. He was 7 when we first saw him.

TL;DR- A lot of dentists suck, a few are good. If they want you out of the room while they work on your kids, find a new dentist.

[everbright]

I'm always so super paranoid about my teeth going to the dentist is actually a relief sometimes [yay, my teeth aren't actually busted! Or they are but not that bad!] that horror stories like this put it in to perspective.

I'm glad Child is progressing as expected! Is he going to get a cap/bridge for the tooth, or is it just going to be pulled?