Lizet's Place

Video dental consult done. The dentist thought that I could be seen later today or tomorrow but no.

I have to wait until Feb 24. That's the earliest appt 😕 I'm going to have to be creative with chewing of food.

Video dental appt today at 2pm and if I need to come in, it will be to the South Gate dental office my insrance is with!

Why does stuff happen in the middle of the month!?

I found a dentist who is accepting new adult patients but they don't accept mid-month insurance transfers...so if I was going to have any kind of dental work done, I'd have to pay out of pocket!

I don't freaking have $1300 or however much it would be for a crown replacement to be done!

And! I don't even know if it can be done because there's not much of my original tooth left for the crown to be attached to!

I'm over here tearing up wondering how I'm going to eat, and that's not me being a fattie either.

It's probably not healthy to live off of meal replacement shakes, but I might have to for a while until I can see a dentist and see what work needs to be done, how much it's going to be, and how much my insurance will cover.

Thankfully, a crown in my case isn't cosmetic, so I'm sure my insurance will cover it.

I looked up what my dental plan covers and it looks like as long as the whole crown process isn't more than $1800, the insurance will cover it.

But I'm still stuck as to what to do for the next 17 days.

I think this is a case of sticking with where I'm currently at, waiting for the video consult and eventual referral, and hope that it isn't longer than 17 days?

This is so stupid. Logically, I understand why dental offices aren't accepting new patients but when an emergency comes up with a patient who already has their insurance with you (and just hasn't made the first appt), an exception should be made to see them...which I guess that's what this video consult will be.

I should have stayed with my previous dentist but I changed to one closer to me and now I'm paying the price.

Last night my crown came out. I can't eat, can't chew without back teeth and that's where the crown was.

So I call my dentist this morning and NONE of their offices are taking new adult patients!

They can schedule me for a video consult before coming to the office But oh! They aren't doing crowns because of fucking covid! The dentist can refer me to another dental office to have the work done.

AND they have no appts today or tomorrow for the video consult and the schedule for next week hasn't been released. I was told I could call later today to see if there are any cancelations and that the schedule for next week might be open then.

When I changed dental offices in October, I checked which were accepting new patients and accepted my dental insurance.

And wouldn't you know, the dentist that shares the same building as my medical office is/was accepting new patients so I changed to them.

Now, their office isn't taking new patients. Until further notice.

The only one in the area accepting new patients is in another city 5 miles away. That's an hour by bus and driving is about 15 minutes...versus the 10 min walk to the location I signed up with through my insurance.

And why do all of the AltaMed offices have the same phone number?! I want to call this dental office directly, but I can't.

For about 2 or 3 days last week I had a toothache. It only got painful at 1 or 2 in the morning, but during the day, it definitely made itself known whenever i tried to chew. So that kind of zapped my appetite.

Then I had cramps. For about 20 or 30 mins. One of my friend said it could be PMS related and I clung to that even though I've NEVER had any PMS symptoms, that I could recognize and when I DID have my period (I went years without having one), I would bleed or spot off and on for over a month (the longest was 45 days!)...and it always started the 24th of the month.

So, this cramping happened, I took some ibuprofen and went to sleep. When I woke up the next morning, I felt fine. I even managed 12 hours without a toothache! I looked hp whether PMS could cause toothaches, and apparently fluctuating hormones can cause dental pain! Okay, I'm sticking with the toothache being caused by PMS and being done with it.

However, it has been a while since I've been to the dentist so I need to remedy that.

The dentist I picked when I got my insurance back in 2014 was about a mile from where I was living at the time.

Since then, I've moved, and honestly, I've only been to that dentist two or 3 times.

Now, I'm 4.5 miles from that dentist, 1 bus there and back, but eww I'm not about that right now.

I went to my dental insurance site to see what dentists were around me and wouldn't you know, there's one that's a 10 min walk from where I live!

Well, I changed dentists on the website. I'm not sure how long it takes to update my records, so I'm calling my insurance in the morning to check, then going to make a dentist appt (its been like 4 years since I've been to the dentist).

Also, the new dentist is in the same building as medical doctors...I might change doctors. But that's even lower on my list of priorities. I'm due for a check up of my lady bits but I don't know how my dr is handling appts. I should call and see.

Yesterday morning/afternoon I started to have a toothache. As the night went on, it got to the point where I could chew on the other side of my mouth because that was putting pressure on the side that hurts.

Then, holy crap, overnight, I was up every 3 hours it seemed because of the pain. I was restless to say the least.

I'm pretty certain that the toothache is really an infection of a broken tooth I need to have removed.

I thought I'd be able to go to the dentist today because on their website they have that they're open on the weekends. However when I called, the recording said they weren't open. I don't know if that was for today only or the weekend in general. But I guess it doesn't matter in the long run. This dentist charges like $275 for a damn extraction! No telling if it would be more than that since it's broken/just the root or whatever. I was going to ask my mom if she could cover it until I got my check in November, but she has her own medical bills to deal with now that she's going to the dr weekly for shots and there's an out-of-pocket expense for it.

In somewhat other related news, I heard on the news a few days ago about the open enrollment period for Cover California or something like that. Getting uninsured people health insurance at low to no cost. I put in my information to see what I would qualify for and they say according to my income, I might qualify for medi-cal. Hmm okay. I go to the medi-cal site and they want all this information about my parents (since I live with them) that I don't have...but as it looks, I might qualify for that. I need to speak with an actual person to see if I really need to give my parents income information since they already have health insurance. I also don't know if medi-cal has dental because that's what I really need at this point.

Time to find something to eat and fold up my clothes.

I called the new dentist to try to make an appointment for their next available Tuesday or Thursday and they don't see patients on Tuesdays or Thursdays? Just Sunday, Monday, Wednesday. But their website has Monday-Friday 8-5 and Saturday-Sunday 9-3.

So, um what? Maybe it's that the dentist who was working with me is only available Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays? I'll need to ask about this.

So I made an appointment for next Wednesday, September 26 at 2 pm. I won't be able to come home after the courthouse, which also means I'll have to take my toothbrush and stuffs with me so that I can make sure to clean my teeth after eating breakfast and lunch.



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So, today I went to the 2nd opinion dentist. Let me tell you, I was hoping against everything that I wouldn’t like this place and/or they’d tell me all this additional work that needed to be done and give me an outrageous price.

Well, it didn’t exactly happen like that. At first glance, I was skeptical about the place (the elevator was trashy looking, but that’s a knock against the building, not the actual dentist who uses office space there).

The receptionist was nice, if maybe a bit too perky for my liking at 9 am.

The dental assistant didn’t seem to know what she was doing or how to operate the computer she was using that would show my x-rays (and later, the receptionist, who also deals with the patient financials, said that she was expecting more x-rays than the 6 that were done).

The actual dentist who saw me? She was really nice. I was the first patient for the day, so they were still sort of setting us, but she apologized for keeping me waiting. Anyways, she rattled off the work that needed to be done and then she explained everything to me. She has a Middle Eastern accent, so I had a bit of a hard time understanding her, but then she pulled up a video that explained all of the work she said I needed to have done.

This was something that my dentist didn’t do, maybe it was because I didn’t ask, but I still think it should have been done. See, my dentist mentioned the extractions, but didn’t tell me about replacement teeth. It was just “you need these extractions” and that was it. This dentist, however, told me “you need these extractions, and also a partial denture and 2 bridges to keep your remaining teeth from shifting and causing more problems”. Okay, right. That makes sense. My dentist never told me that, but I knew that shifting teeth was a possibility without something to take the place of the extracted root tips (which are what need to be taken out). Also, my dentist said I needed to have a cleaning done. Yeah, I would say so after 4 years. This dentist said I needed a deep cleaning because she noticed there were spaces between my gums and the teeth and simple cleaning alone wouldn’t get all the junk that brushing and flossing missed. The one thing she didn’t mention was the cavity between my 2 front teeth. I’m pretty sure this wasn’t mentioned because of the lack of a full set of x-rays…or maybe there just wasn’t a cavity there?

After the examination, I spoke with the receptionist/financial advisor, and she broke down how much everything was going to cost, and further explained the treatments. When I say she broke down the cost, I mean, she broke it down.

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She asked why it’d been so long since my last visit (remember, we were going with “I haven’t been to the dentist in 4+years) and I said it was because I didn’t have insurance and my dentist wasn’t working much with me in regards to how I could pay for my work. She told me that she didn’t want me to worry about that because she and the dentist wanted me to have a beautiful smile (and blah blah blah lol) I think I ended up with something like a 51% discount on the work that needs to be done.

Here’s the really really good part. I literally only pay for the work I have done during the visit. Today’s exam was free (they have a special for un-insured new patients and that’s why I went), but should I go back and decide to get an extraction, I’d only pay for that extraction. Should I decide to go with only the deep cleaning, then I’d only pay for that.

While my dentist set up a “payment” plan, the way it was explained to me was working on the assumption that I’d be having all the work done, so they were going to split it into 2 payments of $375 and 1 payment of $374. That means I’d be paying for work I didn’t have done during that visit.

Also, for as long as I had to wait, I was in and out pretty fast, in my opinion. My appointment was for 9:30 am and I was finished by 10:50 am and catching the bus home at 11 am.

When I got home and explained to my dad what happened, he was still of the opinion that I shouldn’t have 6 teeth removed. He wasn’t getting it that they were root tips and if they weren’t taken care of, it would cost me more in the end. He also said that my dentist was the best choice as the price was cheaper.

That may be so, but if I went with my dentist, I’d have to assume they wouldn’t give me the option have having bridge work or a partial denture to replace the missing teeth and that would make me have to have more work a few years from now or something.

So, in the end, I think I’m going to go with this new dentist. I’ll start with the deep cleaning, and then in November or December, I’ll start on the extractions. Hopefully by then I’ll have a job, if not dental insurance, and won’t have to worry (much) about how long it’s going to take me to pay off the credit card and all the dental work I’d be paying for with it.



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today I called the dentist my dad gave me the ad for.

They're booked until September 12. I was going to say "okay, thanks" and forget about it, but a free dental exam and x-rays for new patients without insurance? Okay, sure. The lady asked when I was last at the dentist, and I couldn't say Tuesday, so I said that it's been 4 years (because up until Tuesday, it had been 4 years since I was last at the dentist) and I wanted the check up. I told the receptionist that my teeth weren't hurting, but I had some broken ones and a filling recently came out. All true.

So now I have an appointment with the new dentist for September 12 at 9:30 am. That's a Wednesday so I'll have to call into N/J that I won't be in that day. I also have to call my current dentist and reschedule my 8/30 appointment for a day after September 12. The new dentist has a cheaper amount for extractions, but when they lady was explaining the cost of crowns to me, they were almost $200 MORE than at my dentist and she was all "we'd give you a discount so you'd only pay x amount" I think it was like 5% or 10% discount, but it was still more than my dentist. Anyways, I'm thinking September 13 or September 18 will be when I get the ball rolling at my current dentist, but I'll know for sure once I see this new one.



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