Finally!

Well, it's been ages since I last posted, but that's because I've been in the waiting game. Waiting for the gums to heal, waiting for the bone to grow, waiting, waiting....

Finally today we got started with some restorative work. This is just the basics, folks. A crumbling filling was removed and a temporary placed on. A couple of other fillings were replaced. The dentist said my gums look great (thank you, Water Pik!). We haven't done X-rays yet to see about bone growth. I'm scared that the Emdogain won't work and I won't have any new bone, especially on top. That worries me a lot.

But today I experienced a new form of numbing, called Stabident. What a horrid name, huh? Sounds like Romanian for "I stab you in your dentistry!" But in fact it's a new system whereby only the tooth is numbed, using a tiny needle that goes right into the bone. Ick. But it profoundly numbs the tooth without causing that "big lip" feeling, where the whole surrounding area has to be numbed (as with Novocain). The coolest thing is that the numbing is immediate. You don't have to sit there for 15 minutes waiting for the Novocain to work, while the sounds and smells of the dentist's office add to your anxiety. Oh yea, when she first put the Stabident in, I felt some anxiety, and she explained that that is actually a physical reaction to the Stabident itself. The elevated heart rate lasts about a minute or two, and then subsides. It helped to know that.

All in all it was a long day, 2 1/2 hours in the chair, 4 teeth fixed. Insurance should pay some, but I had to pay a little over $500. For example, the temporary or "provisional crown" was charged at $200 and insurance is expected to pay NONE of that. WTF??

Soon I'll have to start deciding what kind of cosmetic work I want done. I'm reading bad reviews about Lumineers and veneers -- not only that there are a lot of unsatisfied customers out there, but also that they're extremely expensive and generally not covered at all by insurance. I think insurance would pay some toward orthodontia, so I'm leaning toward braces and whitening. Would love to hear anyone's thoughts. I don't have to make a decision for a few months, but you know me, I like to do my research!!