General Discussion

I might lose my teeth, and I dont know what to do.

Long story short, I'm schizophrenic and spent a good portion of a year homeless, then living in squalor, then couch surfing, and living in an abandoned house.

all in all, about four years of bad self care and neglect.
I'm only recently getting back to brushing my teeth now that I'm medicated. I'm going to start flossing too, and I got myself an anti-cavity rinse.

Long story short, I had cavities in almost all my teeth, multiple ones, and went through a doctor that messed up three of them so bad I couldnt chew on that side for half a year.
Now they say I have seven more cavities and they want to pull a tooth out on my left side.

I lose insurance in october and I currently have two dentist offices dueling each other over my dental care, and I have to make decisions that I cant afford before I definitely cant afford them.
I dont think I want them to pull a tooth, mostly because once it's gone.. it's gone. I'm going to try to reverse some of the damage I've done to them. I'll try to drink more tea instead of sodas, and I've stopped grinding them for the most part.

Everything is painful to eat, and I dont like it.

That sounds horrible. O_O Fortunately, not having teeth isn't actually too bad. I got two pulled a few weeks ago, and now there is nothing there. As long as no prickly chip bits poke the spot where the tooth was it's fine.

I hope everything will work out okay! :)

I've had four... or was it six... teeth pulled two years ago now. It's fine, a very painless procedure if a little uncomfortable and you'll want some support after as you're pretty much unable to speak for a good few hours.

I'd go through with it, it's not all your teeth, just one am I correct? Yeah, adopt porridge for breakfast, it'll take getting used to but it's survivable. Do it while you have insurance and pick the best dentistry for it.

Gotta say though, that's one hell of a story you have there, I wish you well in this.

I'm sorry to hear that you're in such a bind, and that you're in so much pain all the time.

Have you considered alternative routes like visiting a dentistry school? It's a long wait, and the students would be working on you, but they are overseen by a doctor and are much cheaper than dentist offices. I'm not sure if they do procedures like pulling teeth, I'd assume that goes to students who are about to graduate with full degrees/certifications. Perhaps it's worth looking into? From what I've heard they are willing to work with people who have massive amounts of tooth decay as it's a good teaching tool. You may be able to get fillings there for a better price.

You can find one by doing a web search of dentistry schools with a DDS program. It can be anywhere from 50-80% cheaper than a normal office. The downside is that they aren't licensed yet, the upside is hardly anything goes wrong thanks to their supervision.

Holy....crap...

Yeaaah...I'd vote for what the above have said and to pick what you feel is the best density while your insurance is still around.

But, I'm glad to see that you're out of your rut for not at least, and I hope things will start to look up to you now that you have the chance.

First of all, there are plenty of people who have had to have teeth pulled for a variety of reasons, so please, don't beat yourself up about where you are, where you've been, and what you've gone through. In my case, I had a filling in a tooth go bad, a crack, and a root canal that failed before my tooth had to be pulled. It made me feel awful, too, but ultimately, our teeth become more brittle through time, and so many factors can influence what happens to them—factors that, for the most part, we have no control over. So be more gentle with yourself. How you lived, where you had to be in your life at that period in time, just is what it is. And now you're here. It's going to be ok.

You're right about pulling teeth meaning that they're gone for good, but depending on what your medical needs are, that may actually be a good thing. Keeping an infected tooth in can cause problems with infection in the gums, the jaw, the bone, even into the surrounding sinus and other issues. No bueno. So work with your insurance and go to someone who won't treat you like ****, but will treat you like a human being who has a health concern and who deserves respect.

I hate to say it, but you cannot 'reverse' damage done to teeth short of getting the cavities filled or having crowns put on them. There's nothing you can do yourself. Changing your diet and such will not stop them crumbling or cracking further, and it won't stop the cavities widening, it will just delay the inevitable.

I lost two of my back molars a month or so ago. Not because of the same reasons as you, just because dentistry here stops being free after you turn 18 and it becomes prohibitively expensive, because health insurance isn't really a thing. So for 10 years I didn't go.

Then I started getting problems. A front one broke (and I had the worst toothache imaginable, complete with epic face swelling), the back ones broke and crumbled (one 10 years ago, one more recently, which resulted in toothache, earache, face pain, neck pain and a jaw-hinge swelling that prevented me opening my mouth more than an inch for more than a week, which had to be tamed with antibiotics) and it just went on no matter what I did and it was awful and... in the end I just had to go and deal with it. That jaw issue was the last straw.

I was also worried about blood poisoning, which is a potential (albeit fairly rare?) side-effect of bad teeth.

There's nothing they could do to save the back teeth, so I had them pulled out. It wasn't as bad as I expected, but I still have a (slowly closing...) gum hole on the right side. As for the front tooth, that one, which I thought was beyond saving, has been filled and is fine. I've had other fillings to deal with the other holes, too.

On the upside, if they remove one, you may be offered a bridge (which is a false tooth stuck with a little metal thing to the ones next to it, to fill the gap) if the hole is going to be visible. My uncle has one because he got into an accident when he was a teenager. You wouldn't even be able to tell and they're usually much much cheaper than implants.

Get the cavities filled, because you yourself can do nothing about those except slow the widening of them and that won't make it any less painful to eat. Get them filled now and you'll probably save the teeth. Get the one they want pulled, pulled, if there's no alternative.

Its... sucky, but it's not that bad. 8(

I'm not sure if you live in the US or not but if you do maybe see if you're eligible for medicare or medicade after you lose your insurgence.

I'm not quite sure what else to say other than I wish you luck. But hey, just know that things probably aren't going to be as bad as they seem. You're taking care of your teeth now. You're getting better in general. You may lose one tooth but now that you're taking care of them the rest should be okay.

Mental problems suck a lot. Tooth problems suck a lot. But you're going to be okay. :)