21–30 of 585 posts
At the very end of the article: "This article originally ran in the February 1997 issue of Reader’s Digest." Surely this should be noted in the HN title?
When I first went to Ithaca I went to a quack dentist who charged me a lot for unnecessary diagnostics. I did not see a dentist for two years, then I got a referral to my current dentist where the whole family gets a cleaning twice a year. My wife thinks the exam with the dentist after seeing the hygienist is a scam, I see the dentist only if there is evidence of a problem. In that time I got a referral to extract on…
Tooth decay is a slow process and the treatments slowly ramp up in invasiveness: when it's minor you can use sealant (like painting over it), if it progresses you get a filling (with some minor drilling), if that progresses you get a root canal (drilling out the whole nerve and replacing the bulk of the tooth). You may only reach the threshold of feeling pain at the point of needing a root canal when it can be preventable earlier.
(I do suspect hygienists are capable of spotting most of this but my impression is they're not licensed to diagnose.)
What I don't understand is why dentist work is not better regulated and covered by health. I can get a heart operation covered but if I have to do an implant I have to pay for it. I mean, I understand if you charged me something as a punishment (lets say 100/200 dollars), but I don't get why is not covered. We can even make it an additional monthly payment or something. But it is crazy that there is no coverage for m…
The real problem is that dentists business model assumes they will do a lot of restorative work but people’s dental health has improved so it’s far less necessary than before.
My wife was shocked to learn in dental school how many people were there focused on the money. From her experience I learned that dentistry in particular is a profession that has a low investment / high payoff ratio. Relative to medical school dental school is easier to get into and shorter, and unscrupulous dentists can extract a lot of money out of patients. PS: I feel compelled to share her best advice re oral hyg…
This is the one place I like insurance because it at least gives some cost conscious perspective to proposed procedures. My insurance sucks but at least it’s useful that insurance considers optional what my dentist says is essential. For example, my dentist only does tooth colored fillings and my insurance doesn’t cover them. My dentist says the covered ones are unsafe. It’s a weird situation. My last dentist said I…
In my experience, and in my own opinion, the industry of dentistry would be nowhere near as necessary as it currently is if people largely gave up consuming too much carbohydrates and sugar, which feed the bacteria that are ultimately the root cause of tooth decay. Acidification of saliva is of course an issue as well, but I think the whole "drinking cola will rot your teeth" thing is an exaggeration and a sort of red herring. It's not the soda per se, or so much the acidity of carbonated water, but the fact that you're feeding bacteria which colonize in the crevices and pores of your teeth, forming biofilm, creating isolated pockets of acid that wear holes in teeth. If it was all about exogenous acid, then the entire tooth would be rotting evenly, but that's usually not what you see.
My teeth aren't perfect. In fact, there's some decay that I've let sit there for nearly two decades now. Ever since I cut sugar from my regular diet, any caries I had either reversed (when extremely early) or stopped progressing. I do plan on seeing a dentist soon to actually address the decay, because it's silly to leave it there, but I'm confident that I otherwise stopped it in its tracks. My gums don't bleed, and I've seen no meaningful changes to my teeth in all that time. If my hypothesis is correct, then there's a real conundrum because the most affordable food available to people also tends to promote more tooth decay; dentistry largely exists to compensate for the fact that the cheapest available energy for humans comes with negative side effects.
'While you've got good insurance, we can upgrade all your teeth now, before they get bad'? There may be stereotypes about the British having bad teeth, but I've never had a dentist try to milk my wallet like that despite a poor diet having done a fair bit of damage over the years. Dentistry here seems much more about doing the minimum necessary work to save teeth and relieve pain. The thought of getting crowns done e…
What was "unfun" about it? I'm familiar with what they are, but not the pain-points (in the non-literal sense lol) of getting them.
This is the one place I like insurance because it at least gives some cost conscious perspective to proposed procedures. My insurance sucks but at least it’s useful that insurance considers optional what my dentist says is essential. For example, my dentist only does tooth colored fillings and my insurance doesn’t cover them. My dentist says the covered ones are unsafe. It’s a weird situation. My last dentist said I…
At the very end of the article: "This article originally ran in the February 1997 issue of Reader’s Digest." Surely this should be noted in the HN title?
Dentistry has improved in leaps and bounds since 1997 - as the monetary incentive to over-prescribe treatments has now gone, right? /s
Man I had a really serious overbite as a kid and had a lot of orthodontia work done. I'm obsessive with my teeth now because of it. I'm also the child of doctors and coincidentally, when you're the child of medical professionals, other medical professionals treat you very very well. I had stellar dentists up until I moved to a new city and had my first experience with a bad dentist. Never again. Now I'm old enough to…
Is the only way to determine a bad dentist by going to many? I am in need of lots of work, but the thought of going to a ton of car-salesman-esque "medical professionals" to pick the correct one .. is terrifying.