A Little Down in the Mouth

Have you seen my Tylenol anywhere?

Its this tooth, you see. See how it’s a little wiggly? A couple weeks ago the gum around it got all swollen and throbby. It’s done that before, and then calmed down. Took a little longer this time. And when it deflated a bit, the tooth was left a little loose like some ready-to-jump-ship baby tooth. And I have been having trouble not playing with it like you do with a loose baby tooth.

I have had slightly loose teeth before, and like the throbbing, it tends to go away, firm back up. Not this time.

Time to google….

Google Search: “loose teeth” “swollen red gums”

ACK!!!

Periodontal Disease!!??

Karma, I guess, for not noticing my own kitty’s periodontal disease until it was too late.

Well, it’s at least a good kick in the pants for us to settle in and find a family dentist. Since we moved to town, we haven’t had a dental exam once. None of us. It’s way past time. So I started looking through the Pennysaver for coupons you usually find: Low cost first exams, free teeth whitening on one of them! Whoo-hoo!! But when I started thinking about it, I didn’t want to be sent from one dentist, off to a periodontist, back to the first finally for a cleaning. So, I started hunting for a general dentist who did a good amount of periodontal work, took children and worked late at least once or twice a week.

You see, when your husband is a physician, if YOU want to go to the dentist, HE has to cancel and reschedule 5 patients so he can stay home with the kids for a couple hours. And those people likely already cleared their appointments with THEIR job.

…sigh…

Well, seems there is no such dentist. And believe me, I searched. It took all day. All day. Until my household fell to pieces from lack of supervision while I searched webpages, yellowpage listings and made phone calls.

You know what I discovered? A lot of people list themselves under General Dentistry, but they don’t clean teeth. Unless you consider putting thousand-dollar-each veneers over your old stains “cleaning teeth”. Lots of veneer-folks and whitening at DENTAL SPAS (!!) in La Jolla and Del Mar. (for you out-of-towners, read: “wealthy areas”. Lots of ads with words like “luxury”, “5-Star” and “artistry”.

I had to give up something, and so gave up the late hours. Oh well. Sorry, Michael’s Patients!! Have fun rescheduling. But it saves me from having to have three or four appointments on different days to clear this up.

I got a new family dental plan to boot. It says I can change dentists anytime. Maybe when the periodontal stuff is done, I will switch over to that office with the free teeth whitening!!

(She says, as she slurps another sip of thick coffee)