Gilda

I didn't want to hijack the other thread for a more general discussion of going to the dentist, so I thought I'd start a new thread for that purpose.

My first visit to the dentist was when I was 25. My family had what was probably a lower middle class income, but with nine kids, that amounts to an upper lower class lifestyle. Health care was an "as needed" thing. You went to the doctor when sick or injured to the point that mom could not handle it. In other words, if you didn't need to go to the emergency room, it wasn't seirous enough to see a doctor. A visit to the dentist would have been exclusively for the purpose of dealing with an unbearable toothache or physical trauma to the teeth. Braces for crooked teeth were a pipe dream, and deemed a luxury. They were, where I grew up, a status symbol like a luxury car, an indicator that your family made enough money to afford frivilous luxuries.

My adult teeth came in slightly misaligned on the top, and badly on the bottom. My upper middle incisors stick out just slightly. My lower right cuspid is pushed well inside the line, the first bicuspid slightly outward, and the middle incisors jut slightly forward. We had a dentist visit once at the elementary school and do a screening and he sent my parents a recommendation that I get braces, which was treated like a joke. Braces are for vain rich people, at least that was my parents' attitude.

It would have been nice to have straight teeth, but it's really a minor problem. Bottom teeth tend not to show much when I smile, so it's mainly a minor annoyance when brushing and tends to leave me with stuff stuck in between the two badly misaligned ones on the bottom and their neighbors. I'm tempted to agree with my parents here. Given our income, braces would have been an unnecessary luxury that would have offered a pretty poor cost-benefit ratio, expensive for some minor cosmetic benefit.

I went to college on scholarships, so I again didn't have much money extra and no insurance. Going to the dentist was something I likely would have done only for a severe toothache or a toothache that didn't go away in a few days. Mostly it was the money. Going to the dentist meant spending money on something that wasn't hurting me at the time, money I needed for things like tuition, books, and transportation.

Once I graduated and got a job, I had dental insurance for the first time. The dental insurance was set up in such a way as to actively discourage going to the dentist. First, on the day you signed the papers to sign up, you had to pick one specific dentist or dental office, or if you left it blank, they'd assign one from the network based on geographic location and availability. Being new, I left it blank. I had no way of knowing who was and wasn't any good, any pick I'd have made would have been just as random as what they did. I was assigned a storefront dental office named Plaque Attack. I was officially their patient for close to four years and never went.

Why would I not go? If I had insurance and a full time job, wouldn't that indicate that now was the time? Well, no not with the way it was set up. The dental insurance the school district had was tiered by years in the system. Twice a year checkups and cleanings were covered, but everything else was covered at 70% the first year, 80% the second, 90% the third, and 100% the last. You had to be in the system four years to get things like fillings and crowns and everything else fully covered. There was also a provision for braces, which cost $1000, collected as a $100 payroll deduction over ten months.

I could have gone, but I thought I'd wait until the four years had passed, thereby bypassing the three years that you had big out of pocket expenses, and I was only 21 and had never had a toothache, so I saw no urgent need. I could save some money for a downpayment on a house instead while waiting for everything to be taken care of for free.

It wasn't until I was 25 that I first went. Grace was amazed that I'd never been to the dentist. In her world of upper class professional families, everyone went to the dentist. She'd been going twice a year since she was four. As a child she actually enjoyed going to the dentist. It was like looking at an entirely foreign way of thinking for both of us.

So at her urging, I went, and Sissy, who'd just come to live with me. She was strangely eager because she'd never been. It was like an adventure. I was nervous because I really dislike pain. Well, pain that isn't associated with certain other pleasurable activities anyway. The dental plan had changed by then and I'd been assigned to a new office in a different storefront, something called Family Dental Care. It was the change that had actually made Grace aware that I didn't go to the dentist, when my newly assigned provider sent me a postcard reminding me to make an appointment.

When I called, the receptionist asked if I was transferring over from another doctor, and I told her yes and gave her the info from the old office. She told me it would probably take about an hour for the checkup and cleaning, and set me up. I went in, filled out the forms, gave the receptionist my card, waited about 20 minutes, and the dental hygenist took me back. She looked at my teeth and asked when the last time I'd had them cleaned was. I told her this was my first time. She asked if I was a transfer and I said yes and we chatted for a bit as she set up, asking me the standard doctor chat questions about my job and where I was from and making a joke about my accent. She again asked when the last time I'd had them cleaned was, and I told her this was my first time. She said she understood that, but she needed to know when the last time I'd seen the dentist for a checkup was, and I told her, again, that this was my first time. I was beginning to doubt that I'd really want someone who was so dense that she didn't understand "this is my first time" to clean my teeth. "You have quite a bit of build up. Have been getting your cleanings regularly?" I was thinking, "Yes, of course, I go in every three months, which is why I just told you three times that this is my first time." It took another couple of exchanges with her rewording the same question in slightly different ways as if I were a small, developmentally disabled child who didn't understand her question before she finally understood that this was my first time.

A very unpleasant hour and change later, after a lecture on coming in regularly, she tells me this is all they can do right now, and the dentist comes in. I'm told that I'm going to need to come in for two more appointments for cleanings and two more on top of that to get cavities filled, and proceeds to chew me out for not going in for regular cleanings and checkups, and a lecture on the evils of various diseases I'm subjecting myself to by not getting my teeth cleaned. He also spent a good amount of time poking around at my teeth with metal instruments while lecturing me on all the reasons why my not going to the dentist earlier was foolish.

I ended up going in once a week for four weeks to get the cleaning done completely and cavities filled, and being lectured each time about coming in regularly and why I "needed" to go for an orthodontic consult.

As unpleasant as I'd expected it to be, it turned out to be worse. The worst part was that there was still a 30% copay but they waived that and took the 70% paid by the insurance as payment in full. The progressive coverage only applied if you went in for cleanings and checkups twice a year, but this is of course hidden in the fine print and is supposed to be explained by your dentist the first time you visit. The receptionist was very vocal with her dislike for the way this information is given to patients, prompting many to do exactly what I did and postpone going for a year or two.

I've been once a year since for cleaning, and have been getting the same hard sell regarding going to the orthodontist every time. I wonder what he gets out of sending his patients there? A referral fee or something like that, perhaps? It's something I don't need, and I'm not going to spend whatever the copay was by then on a cosmetic procedure.

I'd rather go to physical therapy for my hand or the gynecologist than the dentist. I think the eye doctor is the one I mind least, but that's probably because it's an "as needed" type of thing rather than something you need to do on a regular schedule. I've had my current glasses for four years now, and I'm seeing just fine, so no need for now or the near future.

In the thread that prompted this, Ustwo said this in response to my post:

I'm aware of what a phobia is. This isn't one.

I can understand why so many people do avoid the dentist and are afraid, but I'm not scared, I just find it really unpleasant, so I don't go any more often than necessary. I really don't have much affection for doctors or hospitals in general, but that seems natural to me. It's like most people's interactions with the police--it almost always happens under unpleasant circumstances, so you'll tend to have unpleasant associations with it.

And yes, I'm aware that there's a bit of irony there given that my wife is a nurse and my sister in med school. I don't blame medical personnel, my dislike is simply a factor of going to the hospital/doctor being something you do almost exclusively when you're sick or injured, so it's almost always unpleasant, and it's normal to want to avoid unpleasant things when they're unnecessary. A good year medically is one in which my one trip to the gynecologist and one to the dentist constitute all my time spent in a doctor's office. It's been a bit since I've had a good year by that standard.

I have dental coverage here, but have managed to avoid going. I declined orthodontic coverage when I signed up to save a little. I really don't want to have to go through all of that new patient gauntlet and criticism again. I brush my teeth every morning, every evening, after lunch, and floss every evening and usually after meals due to getting food particles stuck in my bottom teeth. I've never had a toothache, at most having a little sensitivity to overly hot, cold, and sweet foods.

What have your dental experiences been like?
Did you go as a child?
How often do you go?
Do you have any interesting stories regarding good/bad experiences with the dentist?

Gilda

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