Toothless
So you may have seen in my Instagram that I did indeed go to the dentist about the tooth, and it had to come out. It was cracked, so badly that it showed up in the x-ray, and way below the gum. If it hadn’t been too bad I could have had a crown, but it was bad and it had to come out. Like, right now.
I had B in the waiting room because we were supposed to go out to lunch afterwards, but the idea of the tooth breaking off all the way down the root and leaving me with a hole in my mouth scared me enough to not argue. So I made sure she had wifi for the youtubes and off we went.
Now, the last (only) time I got teeth extracted that I was awake for was when I was 17. It was my top two wisdom teeth and the dentist pulled them out with pliers. There was no pain but I still remember the feeling of part of my skull TEARING away. I screamed, with the first one. He put down the pliers, went and shut the door to the waiting room, and came back for the second. It was just as bad.
(The bottom wisdom teeth were four years later, with a different dentist who suggested we do it under general anaesthetic. That was much better.)
So anyway, I was nervous, but dentistry has come a long way in the 600 years since my first dentist trained, and there was no pain at all. There wasn’t even much discomfort, apart from a bit where it felt like he was climbing into my mouth, it was so far open; he took a break about 20 minutes in and I thought he was pausing before the actual extraction but it was already gone. A bit of dressing, a couple of stitches, and I was sent home one tooth lighter.
It’s now almost a month later and I’m fine. It’s not even tender anymore, although the front-facing camera on my phone has been getting a workout as I try to take photos of my hole to see if there’s any food stuck in it.
So what’s next?
Well the options are either a bridge, or an implant. You can’t really leave it because the other teeth will start moving around and ruining your bite. You could get a single denture, but the dentist said “no one does that anymore”. I highly doubt that, because I’m sure there are people for whom the other options are not possible financially, but in the rarefied world of Singapore expats, I bet he is right.
For a bridge, they make a fake tooth, attached to a crown for the teeth either side. Like a… bridge, you know? Or a big piece of Lego. The fake tooth sort of rests on your gum and it’s all one piece. The pros of this are: it’s quick, it can be all sorted in about a week and it doesn’t involve any more surgery. Cons: the adjoining teeth need to be filed down and crowned, which is a shame when one of mine is (surprisingly) without any cavities, and this can leave them sensitive; if any of these teeth later have problems all three are affected; you have to be really careful about food getting stuck between the fake tooth and the gum, which means poking at it with dental picks.
An implant is the better option from a dental perspective. This is where they put a metal post in your gum, and when that is healed they cap it with a fake tooth. You don’t affect the other teeth, which is a big Pro. But the Con list is long: you have to wait for the gum to heal from the extraction; you may need a bone graft if the extraction took too much away (and then that will need to heal too); after the post goes in you need to wait another 3-plus months for it to heal before the tooth can be added. In all it’s at least 8-12 months of work and multiple procedures. But you end up with a better tooth. And, if you think you’ll want to do that then you really should have the extraction performed by the specialist oral surgeon, who can take HOURS to make sure they’re leaving as much original bone as possible.
My dentist said the bridge would cost about SGD $4,200. The implant would be about $6,000, not including the price for the fancier extraction and any costs associated with the bone graft.
Now, I’m a good girl. I like to get the “better” option, because I want to look responsible and get the approval of my dentist (but not enough to floss regularly). But, the price and time stuff put me off, so I said I’d go for the bridge, and hence the cheaper extraction. Which still put me back $1600.
Welcome to the dark place
I was a bit upset at Dave’s reaction to all this. He was all, OMG that’s so expensive and we need to see what insurance will cover and my friend at work went back to India to get his bridge done and it was a fraction of that cost. And I said, you don’t even want to go to India for a holiday, why would I go there for dental work? And he said, okay maybe not India, but Thailand, or even just over the border in Johor Bahru in Malaysia, my colleagues use a dentist there that’ll cost about a third of that and they’re easy to get to. Or maybe even get it done when we’re next in Australia at our old dentist?
I’ll be honest, it was a low time for me. Dave is not a bad guy, and his reaction is normal and sensible, of course you want to find a cheaper option. Things here are so bloody expensive. But I was already feeling sorry for myself, and I was in the depressed part of my cycle, and I just felt so useless, like I wasn’t worth spending the money on. And angry because yes, our health insurance doesn’t cover dental, but when we were getting it we looked into it and it was way too expensive (like a couple hundred dollars a month) for what it actually covered, so we decided to self insure. So that is what we’re doing, we’re SELF INSURING, the money we saved will cover this already. And why is it okay to spend money on trips and concerts and nights out, but not on my tooth? And I felt sad, and guilty that I don’t bring in any money anymore so by definition all I do is cost money. I’m a liability. I suck.
Obviously most of that is untrue, and I’m not feeling like that anymore, but that’s how it was at the time and I want to be honest. And it highlights something, that I don’t feel equal anymore, because I don’t earn. All our money comes from Dave, all I do is spend it. And I know that’s not quite true, I do a lot of stuff to raise B and support him and manage stuff so all he needs to worry about is work, and I know there are a LOT of wives over here that don’t work, but maybe they have more money to begin with. Or actually do bring something in themselves. I don’t know. I just feel like I’ve got to stop spending and start earning and then maybe I can buy my own tooth.
So where are we now?
Well, I’m trying to get in touch with my old dentist in Melbourne to see if it’s workable to get the bridge done there. And I suppose I should find out about the dentist in JB, but I’d much rather get it done by someone I know. And, I need to find some work so I can buy my own pretty things.