Well, I think we can start with appropriate pain medication.

Booze is a great pain medication and antimicrobial all in one. Nature's gifts are the finest.

Just cancel PT, I can see the future.

Otherwise, I'm sorry about ur teefs.

If it was me I'd be seriously considering the old Vermont dental solution; pull 'em all and full dentures. I knew a number of teens and early 20s who'd had that done. More because of economic hardship than bad teeth.

I think it was someone here, wasn't it, who had the story about the dentist who wouldn't pull the last couple of leftover teeth, so the person went home, ripped them out with pliers, then came back to the dentist and said, "NOW give me dentures, dammit." Or was that a story from one of my dad's crazy friends?

I'll go with DAD'S CRAZY FRIENDS for $500

Well, here's how the dental thing went.

"If you want sedation it'll be about 7 weeks before we have an appointment open."

"Go ahead and use the Valium you have with, I'm sure it'll be okay." So I did. It wasn't enough. Had a HUGE panic attack. They did NOT wait for it to be over before starting.

"Oh, you're fine. We'll just numb you up and it'll all be over." (4 HUGE painful shots, 2 into the gums; I nearly broke my neighbor's hand squeezing on it. And he has big hands, where I wore a size 4.5 wedding band last I was married.)

"Your pain contract says you can be prescribed incidental pain relief by other doctors so long as you don't double up with your regular meds AND you notify your MD for a follow-up? That's not how pain contracts are written. I call bullshit." (Last line is a VERBATIM QUOTE from the fucking SURGEON.) So NO PAIN MEDS AT ALL.

"Our injectable anesthetic is great--you won't feel your face until morning." It wore off 20 minutes after the extraction, 40 minutes from home where all the pain meds were. It was a great ride home on icy roads!

Plan #1: No choice about cancelling my pool time for today, as the aftercare clearly states it will be Monday before I'm allowed to elevate my heart rate again.

Plan #2: I'm calling my doc's office in half an hour when they open to ask what it will take to get a copy of my pain contract. I believe the surgeon is wrong about how it's written, and if he is I'm taking a picture of the relevant passages and emailing it to their office!

Plan #3: An hour after that when my dentist's office opens I'm calling them and telling them to NEVER refer me to that surgeon again. He cannot POSSIBLY be the only one in a college town of over 100K who takes fucking Medicaid.

Plan #4: I already HAVE an appointment with my MD tomorrow, at which I will detail out how the surgeon assured me with 100% confidence that no harm could come of doubling up on the regular pain meds I can only have 30 of a month--not according to my MD, according to my insurance!

footfootfoot: Dentures are not an option. I have the kind of TMJ that continuously changes the shape of my lower jaw, so even my 3-year-old partial no longer sits right or allows my mouth to close completely. Medicaid will pay for one set of dentures every TEN YEARS. And as long as the remaining 8 teeth on my lower jaw are "reasonably" healthy, my insurance will NOT pay to have them extracted. 2 are crowns that would require surgical extraction as well.

Wow, that whole ordeal sounds abusive. What is a pain contract? I've never heard of one. The surgeon sounds like a prick who wasn't listening to you or your needs. I'm sorry you had such a shitty experience.

I can only imagine what medicaid will be like after Trump takes office.

What Feet said.



ETA: Here is an example of a pain contract/pain treatment agreement:

Attachment 58845

Attachment 58846

From here.

About that font: All those Ls are Ts. Except for the ones that are Ls.

sometimes, I feel like, I don't know... my feelings of Fuck. It. All. are only barely contained by a soap-bubble of control. or maybe it's just seasonal depression ennui. short tempered, cheerless, why bother? nevemind, I don't really care. I can't find any good.

it sucks.

My pain contract is a lot less restrictive than most, but now that it's been used to deny me emergency care twice in three weeks, I'll be talking to my doc about how absolutely necessary it is--and I'm getting a copy to carry with me. Mine pretty much amounts to "Be honest and don't get hooked". The biggest clause I deal with is "if you go to an ER or have emergency treatment by a specialist, follow up with your MD whether or not pain meds were involved."

My followup after the (unladylike words here) dental surgeon is in just about 2 and a half hours.

BigV, long nights and cold temperatures can really mess with the human psyche. That's why Norwegian Black Metal is so...Norwegian, is my theory. My sweetie HATES winter. He gets restless, paces around the house, has trouble focusing, and gets what passes for short-tempered in his case (which isn't much; he is a gentle soul).

footfootfoot said:
Wow, that whole ordeal sounds abusive. What is a pain contract? I've never heard of one. The surgeon sounds like a prick who wasn't listening to you or your needs. I'm sorry you had such a shitty experience.

Well, I've reported back to my regular dentist that said abusive prick insulted my regular dentist (2nd generation of a family practice--his dad used to fix my teeth until he retired and the son took over), and I don't think that's gonna go over well.

As for the ER doc who saw me on Black Friday when I had 2 in-the-bone dental abscesses and who yelled at me for asking for help with pain because my normal pain meds (which are pretty mild, really) weren't touching it, he's being investigated by the hospital for that stunt and for sending me home without even antibiotics. My neighbor was with me the whole time (gee, now why would I be insisting more and more on having a witness at any medical situation NOT involving my regular doc & dentist?) and the person in charge of the investigation has his name and number. He's said he will be MORE than happy to tell them what a d*ck the ER doc was.

If you don't get satisfaction I'm sure the cellar can make a google search of the doc show your description of his treatment a first page result. UT can explain.

True and still more effective than a bad Yelp review. (I had a bad dentist and we plastered his practice name all over a thread due to his poor work.)

And that thread is gone for some reason.