The good news: I am really, really good at breaking things.
The bad news: I utterly destroyed the tooth, and it can’t be fixed. I need an extraction, and to choose between the following: getting (a) dentures, or having a titanium screw inserted into my head and a fake toothy implant installed.
HOORAY!
It’s like choosing between a nightly kick in the junk or being shot in the knee. Dentures are expensive and annoying – I’d have to take it out each night and soak it in old-people solution like both my parents did for years and years. Since the destroyed tooth is in the worst possible spot, I’d basically be fisting myself in the mouth twice a day to shove a piece of plastic and metal up in my gums so I can chew hard things on my left side. That sounds horrible, not to mention depressing as hell – dentures are for OLD PEOPLE.
So, what about the implant? It’d be a long term solution, and since it’s an implant I would be part cyborg. It would also be a long and arduous procedure, because I’d need an extraction, then the installation of the screw and a firmware upgrade, then six months later (after everything heals) they’d make me a bionic tooth out of science and technology and an amalgamation of 200 notorious criminal personalities and I would totally be a cyborg that hopefully doesn’t look like Russell Crowe. Sounds great, right? Who *wouldn’t* want to not be Russell Crowe?
It gets better: Substitute Dentist Man said it’s very likely that implants are NOT covered by my benefits, and oh by the way the whole thing would cost around $3500. Hahah!
There’s no guarantee that the denture solution, clocking in around $1200, would be covered either. Whee!
And I need to make my decision SOON, before things get any worse. Yay!
The one small bit of good news in all of this (other than I am awesome at breaking stuff) is that my dental benefits jumped from $500 to $2000 – turns out someone forgot to bump me from “new employee” to “regular employee” status at work. Assuming Ed’s HR people stop fucking with his spousal coverage, I should be able to merge our two plans to form MEGA COVERAGE and stop paying out of pocket for my appointments (and get most of the $550 I paid last week when I supposedly maxed out my coverage back).
This all really sucks, though. I don’t recommend breaking a tooth in such a spectacular fashion, because it will be a giant pain in the ass to deal with and it will hurt both the mouth and the pocket book. I don’t WANT oral surgery. I don’t want surgery of any kind! I am Not Good with anesthesia OR pain! Boooooo. Poor me.
I got to keep my gross horrible tooth, though. It’s so gross!
Ed is suggesting that I get the extraction and leave it at that, making me a toothless hobo forever. I don’t much like that plan – I enjoy chewing – but I am at a loss as to what the fuck to do.
delicious juice dot com 
Get the implant. It’s not as bad as it sounds.
Go for the implant. We can be cyborgs together. But since I have to get 3 implants, I will be triple the cyborg and therefore more awesome. Just so we’re clear. :P
I’d recommend the implant too. The problem with losing a tooth is that the jaw bone recedes or something. Someday I need to look into getting an implant for my missing 12 year molar.
I think it’s pretty normal for dental coverage to not cover implants. Or maybe I just work for cheap companies.
Also, what Gillian said is true about the bone “receding”. I had a molar taken out years ago and they didn’t do anything with that space. So I have to get a bridge there now instead of a 4th implant since there isn’t enough bone.
Yup! Implant! My mom just got one and a) it looks awesome when they have the metal thing in, she looked totally Terminator and b) it’s not so bad apparently and c) it’s really worry-free and no mucking and it’ll be cheaper in the end than replacing that denture every few years and most importantly d) what Stephanie and Gillian said.
Or you could get started early in a career as Kimli “Gums” Welsh, who knows, you might make enough that way to get TWO sets of dentures… eventually…
Toothless hobo!
Toothless hobo!
Toothless hobo!
Toothless hobo!
I think “Gums” would be a great nickname.
I checked, my half decent dental coverage doesn’t include implants either. But would include dentures. Dentures would definitely help for future gummers.
I’m gonna have to vote for “implant” too. The tooth drift is really not something you want, and the implant will prevent it.
And then we can be teethborg buddies! (Me? $10k out of pocket over two years. Bluhhhhhhhrhgh.)
Too bad the neighboring teeth don’t need root canals or crowns. I recently had the option of implant or a bridge over two teeth needing crowns with the fake tooth in the middle to fill in and maintain that spacing; the the former was $3500 by itself, and the latter is just under half of that including some other prep work.
Doing nothing will cause jaw, gum, and adjoining teeth problems that are worse than growing OLD ( hum tune from Deliverance….).
What’s with the “OLD PEOPLE” comment? There’s a lot of LESS WISE people wearing dentures due to lifestyle choices. Getting older..no choice there. It’s also a misnomer, as most of the stuff in the skin bag is only 6-8 years old.
Wow! I was sure the tooth just popped off the crown prep. Huh. Suckage.
Implant, no question, although you likely have YEARS before you will begin to experience any sort of bone loss or ‘tooth slide’. It’s no rush, but the extraction probably is.
My plan covers none of that business, but my wife’s will cover the crown to go over the implant. However, the implant itself is not covered.
How old are you? Late 30’s?? I would suggest that OVER HALF of your 40-ish friends have some sort of crown/implant/denture/partial/bridge thing going on. It’s pretty common, teeth just don’t last forever.
Late 30’s. Enjoy.