151–160 of 585 posts
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Surely floss daily should be the advice? It only takes an extra minute when you are brushing so there’s no reason not to.
For the same reason you don’t brush 10 times a day. It isn’t significantly more effective than once a week and we all have better things to do.
My son when 3 had a fall and a few teeth were bent. Went to our local dentist who mostly had a wait and see opinion. But then calls a day later and says they’ve decided they should just come out. Two top front teeth. Would have no top front teeth for years. I went into engineer mode and while I acknowledged I didn’t have domain expertise, I asked questions and probed the whole situation. Very unsatisfactory, meanderi…
The same is true for healthcare generally in my experience. Very bad advice is often given. I can't really common about the US, but here in the UK the quality of healthcare is shocking bad. Although we may have the opposite problem, where instead of doing unnecessary procedures to increase costs, the NHS generally tries to avoid doing anything unless you're dying. I had some pain in my abdomen a few years back and ha…
I have seen this in my personal life time and again. I have seen it in my professional life time and again.
The only way though the mine field is to take personal ownership over your Healthcare, you need to learn more about what ailes you than the doctors know. You need to be confident in this knowledge enough to challenge them and walk out to receive better care at any moment. This is why people say that healthcare us such a trap in the US particularly. If you are injured and incapacitated you can't advocate for yourself, and if you don't have the support infrastructure in place in your personal life we are just one medical event away from financial and physical ruin.
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Frequent cleanings are nice though. As an avid tea drinker it's nice to have white teeth again once or twice a year. The insurance covers most of the cost, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
What? My dentist told me teeth whitening is not part of regular cleaning, and I'd pay extra for whitening. I also drink a lot of tea and coffee, and unless I pay extra, I don't get any whitening.
I found that getting the fluoride paste applied at the end of each cleaning actually helps reduce the tea staining. (My teeth used to stain pretty bad)
I've posted this before, but I went to a new dentist one time and though I'd never had a cavity, the new dentist said I had nine, some of which were pretty bad and needed immediate treatment lest they require a root canal. I didn't have any money or dental insurance at the time, so I didn't go back and just worried about it a lot for a while. That was twenty-five years ago. Haven't been to a dentist since. My teeth a…
Went to a new dentist after moving. She found two "small spots that could go bad if left untreated!" and "should be drilled and filled!". A year later I am still in pain some time. Dentists are fucking psychopaths and we are literally cattle at their mercy. I have no idea how to continue, how to find a dentist I can trust with my stupid teeth. I am terribly afraid of them now.
If you are in pain, they either damaged the nerve which is bad as that could require a root canal eventually. Or they failed to clean out the cavity and it's infected. Either way, you should experiment with finding a dentist, perhaps go in for a cleaning every 6 months to check a dentist out.
At not point are you obligated to do a cavity filling unless you are comfortable with it. Just decline any additional services beyond the cleaning.
My son when 3 had a fall and a few teeth were bent. Went to our local dentist who mostly had a wait and see opinion. But then calls a day later and says they’ve decided they should just come out. Two top front teeth. Would have no top front teeth for years. I went into engineer mode and while I acknowledged I didn’t have domain expertise, I asked questions and probed the whole situation. Very unsatisfactory, meanderi…
The problem for the most part in all industries is we have moved from a system of experts to a system of credentials. Now one would say that in order to get a credential in something one must be an "expert" but this is far far from the truth, there are all kinds of competing incentives to ensure an ever increasing supply of "credentialed" professionals that have nothing to do with validation of their expertise in a given field or subject.
It does not matter if it something like an electrician, or brain surgeon, from teaching, to physics, and everything in between including medicine, we favor credentials now not expertise
Largely the consumer public simply looks to see if this person as the correct credential. license, etc for the given job... Consumers often lack the resources, information, or decisions tree in most instances to look for any indicators of actual knowledge in the field beyond that credential
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…
Ok sample of N = 1, but here it goes. Flossing daily was the single thing that imroved my dental hygiene more than anything else. Brushing, mouthwash, fluoride treatment, gum laser treatment, regular dentist visits, nothing worked. Still had bleeding gum, pain here and there, bad smell, unstopabble tooth decay. In my mid 20-s I started flossing daily (even multiple times when I feel like food is stuck). Really my mou…
My gums were always bad so I thought I needed to floss more. But once I started using an electronic tooth brush all my gum problems are gone.
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I think the “do your own research” label conflates two categories: people who are shopping for a comforting answer, and people who want to be informed and make conscious decisions. I don’t have to be a dental expert to know that something isn’t adding up and to seek a second opinion.
It strikes me as unfortunate that for a lot of things like home repairs/renovations its pretty normal to get 3+ different opinions/bids.. but for our health its usually your regular doctor, and at most a 2nd opinion in some cases. We'll make life changing decisions based on the opinion/advice of 1 individual, while shopping around on a home project or car repair that's +/- $5k. It seems again like a combination of sh…
I had a really bad sprain about two years ago to the point where my partner had to help me on and off the toilet. Eventually I took off work, went to urgent care, and paid $200 for them to basically say "well it's not broken, we could do an MRI otherwise we don't know what you want us to do". Booking an appointment with a GP would have taken around a month. They won't be able to do anything long term but will recommend a physical therapist. All said and done it's probably a $5-10k ordeal and weeks until I could actually see any progress, plus work time missed. Big surprise, I didn't actually end up going to see a doctor. Recovery sucked and some movements still aren't quite right.