Erik is aqui

After roughly 7.5 years of being a very bad boy, I went to the dentist today. Day one cost me $632 (cleaning, checkup, full x-rays, and a filling on two surfaces). My fairly crappy insurance should cover roughly $150 of that. More fillings are in my immediate future and I’ll probably get talked into getting another crown to replace a molar that is roughly 20% tooth and 80% filling. I’m assuming I’m going to have to spend at least $1000 more out of pocket in the next week or two. Major drag, BUT, it is a load off of my conscience to get this underway. The kinda sad thing is that if I HAD been going to the dentist every 6 months, I would have spent a LOT more, even if I was able to avoid all of these cavities. Actually, even if I went to the dentist every six months and had ZERO tooth decay, I would still have to have been talked into getting fillings replaced and my heavily-filled teeth replaced with crowns. Cha-ching. More money gone.

What’s my point? I’m not sure. I guess it just sucks to know that if I had been doing the right thing, my teeth wouldn’t be much better off than they are after 7.5 years of neglect. And I would have spent a LOT more money on them. I wonder who decided you need to go to the dentist every six months. Oh, right! Dentists did! It’s like how Jiffy Lube (or someone in the oil-changing industry) decided that you need to get your oil changed every 3000 miles. Thing is, depending on the car, the manufacturer recommends an oil change every 5000-10,000+ miles. So who to trust? The person who wants you to pay them to change your oil? Or the manufacturer who wants to sell you another car?

Well, I certainly plan on getting in the dentist habit. Once I’m done with this round of work, I’ll go six months later. Promise. I also promise to be better about flossing. Really. I’ll use Listerine, too. I think.