Sunday, July 01, 2012

Worst Night of my Life

I'm looking for advice today, no pictures, may be a long post.

Ok, to start, here's my background. When I was in college about 6-10 years ago, I drank a lot of pop, and never took care of my teeth. About 5 years ago, I noticed I was getting holes in my teeth on my top molars way in the back. Last January, I gave up pop, I had been brushing once a day since then. I admit I couldn't entirely give it up, I crave pop, I got through 3 months and then started having it randomly again. This year, I gave it up again, and failed again. In April, I started noticing a couple of my front teeth deteriorating, that's when I started to get worried. I always figured if no one could see my bad teeth, I was ok with it, but there's a person I work with that has pretty much no front teeth, I did not want to look like him. Granted, he smoked, so I'm pretty sure that had a factor.
Anyway, I made an appointment with my dentist, he told me, my back teeth were too far gone to deal with (by this time, I had half a tooth on one side and a pretty big hole on the other side). I don't have dental insurance, which is pretty much the reason I never went to the dentist before. Anyways, my dentist said I had two cavities in the front and that it would cost about $130 a piece to get them filled. He asked if there was a possibility that I might get insurance, there was, and I'm still hoping on that possibility. He said I could wait a few months to get them filled, wait until I got insurance. The possibility of me getting insurance is when they decide to add a clerk position at work where we get benefits, I've been told if I apply I would be high up on the list.
I asked my boss if she knew when the next position would come up, she didn't know, so I decided to just get them filled and taken care of. About a month later I went back, he filled the worst one and said to wait on the other. Also, it turned out to be less than what he estimated. He had told me at my first appointment that the only thing he could do with the back teeth was to take them out for about $900 a piece, and that would only be if the gums were swollen or if I was in a lot of pain. I figured, I'd had 2 kidney stones, I can handle pain.
I found out last night, I really can't handle that much pain. I have no idea what triggered it, or if anything did. I was watching a movie and about 9pm I got a little pain in my upper teeth, so I took 2 ibuprofen and went to bed, I slept about 2 hours and just kept waking up off and on in pain. About midnight, I woke up in the worst pain I've ever had, it was so intense, my mouth was watering and I couldn't do anything but lie there and stare at the ceiling, so I took 3 more ibuprofen and hoped it would get better. As I'm taking the meds, I'm reading on the bottle that I shouldn't take more than 6 in 24 hours, unless otherwise told. Sometime in the night my pain went away, and I'm incredibly happy for it. When I was in so much pain, I considered getting dressed and going to the ER for some better pain meds.
I'm afraid of what to do if the pain returns. Do I go to the Urgent Care clinic and ask for some stronger pain meds? I figure I need to get the tooth taken out, but I can't afford that, I really don't want to tell my parents, my mom has told me for years I was messing up my teeth, and she was right.

Any advice would be great.

Thanks

3 comments:

Carrie M said...

I would go to Urgent Care over the ER because it's generally cheaper.

One option for the dental work is that if you can get yourself down to Iowa City, you can go to the dental school to get work done. It's much cheaper than a regular dentist. The bad news is that it's in Iowa City, plus you'd have to be okay with people used as a teaching tool.

HI! I'm Tabitha said...

go to the dentist and get it done. i have insurance and its still costing me 600 to get the work done i need. most dental insurance only covers the first 1000 in repairs. I've avoided the dentist for 8 years and now I'm paying the price...hugs

missmacymay said...

Because you have the pain I don't think waiting is a good option; won't the doctor's office set up a payment schedule for you since they know you do not have insurance? If he is reputable he should understand your circumstance since you are probably not the first person to come in his office with this problem.
By the way HAPPY BIRTHDAY.