So I’ve spent the last couple of days bringing you up to speed. At the end of The Horror of Dental Insurance & Teeth I told you about the catch 22 of my insurance coverage where my wisdom teeth were concerned. It’s bad enough that I was getting flack for being 35 and not having had my wisdom teeth out, but the whole insurance thing? Yeah, it’s the stuff nightmares are made of.
So What to Do Now?
I have to admit as defeated as I felt, I knew that this wasn’t the time to lie down and die. I certainly didn’t have $4,300 and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon. The fight or flight instinct was kicking in, I was in pain, I’d spent half my summer in pain (and let me tell you – it was actually a decent summer here until August, but that’s another story.) So, I called the local colleges.
Dentists go to school, right?
Sure they do.
Going Back To School
Not 35 minutes from here near the downtown area is one of the medical universities and yes, they have a dental college attached. I called and explained my issues and what was going on. They scheduled me for an assessment appointment in 3 weeks. 3 weeks! I asked if there was any way they could get me in sooner. After all, I’d been in pain for over six weeks now and the idea of trying to go another 3 weeks wasn’t appealing. I had a prescription for heavy duty painkillers, but I hate to take those if I can avoid it.
Nope, 3 weeks was the best they could do. So I sucked it up and rode it out. I did my best to maintain as normal a schedule as I could, but over the next 3 weeks I discovered a whole new meaning to pain and suffering. In fact, one of my wisdom teeth actually pushed its way out of the gum line so I now had three little points of a tooth sticking straight out at the top of the gum (yes, attractive, I know.)
But finally the day was here and with glee, yes glee, I went to the assessment appointment. It was $115 to have them do the full assessment, x-rays and consultation. Then they would determine the fee for removing the teeth based on complication of procedure – the price would be anywhere from $25 to $125 per tooth.
You’re Not 18
The resident who did my exam went over all the possible complications – my upper two wisdom teeth had roots burrowed into my sinus passages. This likely explained the persistent pressure headaches that I had, migraines and even the sinus infections I always seemed to get. The bottom two wisdom teeth were so deeply buried that their roots were near the nerve that runs through the lower part of the jaw.
He explained the possible complications including numbness to the lower part of my face that may or may not be permanent. Also that if they couldn’t close the sinus holes after removing the teeth, I may have to go in for a second procedure and of course, the biggie:
You’re not 18, Mrs. Long. Your 35 and you’re not going to heal as fast as you would if you were 18. An 18 year old would probably bounce back in two or three days, you’re looking at 10 to 18 days at least.
Gotta love the doc, but I’ll be honest — nothing works like it did when I was 18. So I could live with the recovery time. Now it was time to make the appointment and the little secretary was trying to blow me off till October (yeah, I about had a heart attack) and the resident came in and said, no, I couldn’t wait till October. It wasn’t an emergency extraction yet, but it was rapidly becoming that way.
They did some shuffling and found that they could shoehorn me in 1 week later. I took it. My total was going to be $765 to remove all four wisdom teeth and the bad tooth that had the abscess. The procedure would likely take 90 minutes or so. I paid with a credit card, signed the consent forms for student observation and practically bounced out of the college.
Did my teeth still hurt?
Oh yeah.
Was it over yet?
Oh no.
Was that light at the end of the tunnel a freight train?
Not anymore!
I was getting those annoying, painful, agonizing teeth removed, I couldn’t be happier! Now I had one week to get everything ready at home, get my daughter ready to go back to school and tried very hard not to think about the fact that my entire summer had been devoted to my wisdom teeth.
Come back Monday for the final installment on my wisdom teeth as I get the removed and what happened next.