I think my dentist is ripping me off.

Keep fighting

Morrus said:

In other news, I have never heard of a dentist who would do a filling without a local anaesthetic.

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Getting a filling done does not hurt as much as people think. It's not fun, but it beats having to deal with the feeling of a numb jaw long after your visit to the dentist. There's plenty of dentists that will do a filling in the Netherlands without an anaesthetic, but these days they always offer to give you one. I tend to decline. When I grew up none of the dentists gave you one for a simple filling, you just had to endure it.

Idk what they use here, stick needle in jaw numb mouth pay me $180 dollars. Just quicker and easier not to use it. Used to not now.

Pains about a 2 or 3 on the Zard pain scale. One of my old player broke a tooth and removed it himself using pliers. Same player turned up to D&D after getting hit by a car played the session then went to hospital. Had subdermal bruising and he was in pain and stiffening up at the end of session.

Idk if yanking your own tooth out with toolbox pliers is a good idea.

Belfar you mad bastard.

I have long since outlived to tough guy, the pain isn't that bad, mentality.
And I have yet to see a D&D campaign that I would prolong a visit to the hospital for. Especially after a car hit me.

Only go with a 6 month cycle if 4 is too much. I can afford it and my insurance covers it, but I still feel like that often is just too much.

I think some of this is dependent on the dentist and their own philosophy. I have had one that wants to do work right away as something comes up, and my current is more conservative. Prefers to watch a bit first to see how things progress and whether additional action is needed.

I am by no means a 'tough guy', but getting a filling from a skilled dentist barely hurts. Skilled being the operative word here. If your dentist knows what he/she's doing, you should be fine. And it saves money too.

Blue said:

This sounds like criminal charges and a lawsuit. Too bad it's likely far past the point you could do that.

While this is very believable from 20 years ago when it happened to you, luckily I have a hard time picturing this happening in the US now. Malpractice insurance is hideously expensive compared to other countries and no medical professional I know would dare risk something like this when the alternative is just administering more Novocain, which they have handy. Sure it's a few minutes lost for it to take effect, but much better then a lawsuit.

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Yeah, I grew up in rural Kentucky. Back when I was growing up there, from the early 80's to the mid 90's a lot of stuff happened that would get people sued to oblivion now, but people just accepted it as the way things were.

Heck, that wasn't even the biggest lawsuit that would have happened from stuff from my childhood, under modern standards.

We had a junior high guidance counselor who thought herself much more of a psychologist than she really was. She started calling in students for random questioning. Just calling them in and interviewing them. She was apparently on a fishing expedition for signs of abuse or neglect or anything she could label as mental illness.

Well, she called me into her tiny little office one day, and asked me a lot of stuff about my home life, about what my parents do, about what a typical day at home is like for me, and so on. At the end, she just sent me on my way back to class after about an hour.

What I DIDNT know was that from that one conversation, she'd diagnosed me with clinical depression. Her basis for this diagnosis? I told her I liked it when it rains and like to watch it rain. She figured that only a depressed person could like a rainy day, so she concluded I was depressed.

Her course of action on this? Instead of tell my parents, she told all the teachers at school. She apparently shared her "diagnosis" with everyone in the teacher's lounge (this was circa 1991, HIPPA wouldn't be passed until 1996, and I'm pretty sure a school guidance counselor isn't considered competent to diagnose anyone with clinical depression).

My mother found out about it a few weeks later when she came to school to drop something off. The school librarian came up to my mother and said she was so sorry to hear about me. My mother had no idea what was going on. She then found out, from the school librarian, that the guidance counselor had diagnosed me as depressed and told the whole faculty of the school. . .and didn't say one word about it to her or my father.

Yeah, she was in the principal's office moments later chewing him out, and chewing out the guidance counselor. The counselor apparently tried to stand by her diagnosis, saying that there's no way a normal kid could enjoy a rainy day, since it would be rainy and a kid would be stuck inside with nothing to do except watch it rain and there would be nothing on the TV that would interest a kid most of the day since mid-day TV was all soap operas and news.

My mother had to point out that rainy days in our house were days we'd stay in and make a pot of chili or stew, watch movies together on the VCR, that I had a Nintendo and a couple dozen games, that I had a lot of legos and other toys. . .that it being rainy didn't mean that I didn't have anything to do and was stuck bored with nothing to do and somehow liking it. She also had to point out to the guidance counselor something called Cable TV, and that I was a big fan of A&E and the History Channel et al. and could find something to watch mid-day other than a soap opera, talk show, or the noon news.

My guidance counselor had some old 1950's or 1960's idea of life and literally didn't realize that kids could play video games or watch videotapes ect. on a rainy day or that they had toys they could play with inside, she seemed to really think that a pre-teen boy's ONLY options for playing were to run around outside and that if it was raining, there was nothing to do at all. Her anachronistic attitude extended to a total lack of discretion and privacy about her "diagnosis" she reached (and I still really doubt a junior high guidance counselor is competent to make such a diagnosis, especially after one interview).

Morrus said:

Zardnaar watched Marathon Man’s torture scene and thought “I can do that!”

In other news, I have never heard of a dentist who would do a filling without a local anaesthetic.

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While I had my wisdom teeth removed after having received injections, my regular dental work like fillings is done while receiving nitrous oxide. Getting the needle hurts me more than the dental work does and I've had my mouth stay numb for 5 days, on one occasion, after receiving an injection for dental work.

Nitrous doesn't really do anything for the pain; it just makes you not mind it

Imaculata said:

I am by no means a 'tough guy', but getting a filling from a skilled dentist barely hurts. Skilled being the operative word here. If your dentist knows what he/she's doing, you should be fine. And it saves money too.

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Understandable. I am talking more to the, let's pull it out with a pliers or, getting hit by a car and thinking playing D&D right after is a good idea.

We thought it was a bad idea at the time. Tried telling him. The tooth was broken in a MMA sparring training. I would have gone to the hospital myself.

I had a mate working in a butchery and he wrecked his back enough to require surgery, one year off work (mine was 2 months). He stopped using injections as well.

Not so much tough guy but pain is relative, or you get sick of pain killers if you use them for a while. Or when other medication makes you bleed internally.

An epilogue to this story:

Today I went to a different dentist.

I chose a completely different dentist, totally unaffiliated with the last one, in a different town (actually much closer to where I live now).

I got a second opinion.

I had this new dentist tell me I absolutely did NOT need to come in every 3 months, that I absolutely did NOT need the more expensive "periodontal maintenance" appointments, and that there was no basis for any of that. I got a clean bill of health, dentally speaking, that I've got no cavities, no periodontal disease, and no notable dental problems.

So, I'm going to the new dentist.