Kevin and I went to the dentist in June. Our dentist was retiring and he had brought in a new younger dentist to start taking over the practice. The new-young-dentist is the one that saw us that day.
Dr. New-Young-Dentist brought in a new dental hygienist when he started working in the office. The new hygienist cleaned my teeth and asked me, “If money were no object, what would you do to your teeth?”
I kind of looked at her, blinked and said, “I don’t know.”
“Come on!” she said. “There has to be something you’d do. Money is no object. You have all the money in the world. Would you get veneers? Nice, perfect straight teeth?”
I was completely unsure of what to say. Just to get the conversation over with, I said, “Sure. Okay, veneers.”
When Dr. New-Young-Dentist came in, the hygienist said, “You need to check two spots that I thought looked like possible cavities. Also, she wants to get veneers so let’s start working toward that, okay?” She walked out of the room.
Dr. New-Young-Dentist looks at me and says, “Veneers, huh? That’s great. People look so much better once they’ve got veneers. We’ll really spruce up that smile of yours.”
I was a little insulted. Did I look like crap with my god-given teeth? The whole reason I had braces when I was 18 was to straighten my teeth. They were strictly vanity braces, I had no bite problems. I didn’t really want veneers nor do I feel I need them. If I come into a financial outpouring and I decided to spend it on a medical procedure, LASIK is what I’m going with.
So Dr. New-Young-Dentist gets his little metal pokey tool and tells me to open my mouth. He literally pokes 3 teeth. Just three! 1…2…3 little teeth. He tells me he is finished and said, “Well, I see about seven cavities we’re going to have to take care of, okay? Schedule an appointment to fix those. I’ll see you later.” And he WALKS OUT.
So I’m there, alone in the dentist’s chair thinking, “How the hell did I go from zero cavities to 7 in six short months? Life sucks…” I get up, go to the front and make my appointment for the fillings.
Kevin called me later in the day after he’d had his appointment. First thing he said to me was, “Rough one, huh? 10 cavities for me, 13 for you. How did that happen?”
WHAT???!!! “How many cavities did you say I had?” I screeched into the phone.
“Thirteen…” he replied. “Why?”
“They told me I had seven. Only seven.”
“They said that after the doctor looked at the x-rays he found more.”
I couldn’t believe that between the two of us we had gone from zero, zippo, zilch in the cavity area to twenty-three. That was when I decided we needed a second opinion, but I was a little scared about how my insurance would react to that. Nonetheless, I canceled our appointments with Dr. New-Young-Dentist and forged ahead. This was, after all, my dental health. I get to make the decisions.
So we asked a bunch of people at work, got some recommendations and made an appointment for Kevin with a new dentist. We only made an appointment for one of us to see how the insurance would cover it and see what damage would be done financially. Dr. Second-Opinion told Kevin that he had one cavity. ONE cavity and that maybe a couple spots should be watched. The enamel was worn down a little but it wasn’t through the enamel and it certainly wasn’t decay.
After the paperwork was processed, the insurance covered the exam completely. We made an appointment for Kevin to get his filling and then I made an appointment to get my second opinion. My appointment was last week.
Dr. Second-Opinion was so nice. He looked around my mouth, was very thorough and said, “I found two cavities. I found a couple spots that maybe should be watched, but they’re not decay yet and I wouldn’t want to drill in and lose some of your original tooth structure just ‘because’. So, how many cavities did your previous denist find and do you know which teeth he wanted to drill in?”
“I think he wanted to drill in all of them. He said I had thirteen.”
“THIRTEEN! I can’t even find thirteen spots that I would consider ‘watch spots’ in your mouth.”
So I went in for another appointment last week had my two fillings put in. He walked me through every step of the process; showed me the decay, showed me how much he drilled out, showed me the completed filling. It was a great experience. (as far as getting a filling goes)
So Dr. Second-Opinion has now become Dr. Regular-Dentist, as we are switching to him. I don’t trust a dentist who is constantly pushing pricey procedures on me and making me feel like he doesn’t care about my oral health, as long as I make his next boat or mortgage payment.
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Song playing now: Inside Out by Eve 6
On the outside, I try to project an image of having it all together. But underneath that, I'm kind of a disaster. Hence... the name of the site: GlossyVeneer. 
