Memes

Yes and please make sure you get it checked out! It may seem like a non-issue (just minor pain, etc) but if it ever gets worse the damage is likely going to become permanent and your quality of life with no teeth/extreme toothache is a lot lower than you might think.

Source: my dad and uncle neglected their teeth and its becoming a bad issue now

Thanks, I’ll look around. Better than waiting.

This. They just need you for a follow-up visits, since they get graded on how mow complete the procedure was done.

Unfortunately, dental works are of those kinds where everything takes multiple sittings.

Everyone deserves free healthcare and dental, I pray you get to see that dream.

I have larger than average teeth too, so I had braces all of middle school.

Hoping the cause of this is something simple like a sinus infection, though the area has a baby tooth that’s managed to hang on and it has fillings from when I was a kid.

FWIW, our universal health coverage here will cover medical dental care, but not cosmetic. They'll patch up or remove your bad tooth, but I think it'd be harder to get an implant or a crown without paying for it. Weirdly, dentists are still one of the two or three basic services where people here are still willing to pay for uncovered medical attention, the others being eyecare and pediatrics.

When I needed surgery my private dentist still sent me over to the public system, though. Took a look at my X-rays, told me she wasn't gonna touch any of that without an MRI and an OR on standby and told me to go to my public doctor with a note and tell them to get me booked with a maxillofacial surgeon, which I did. It wasn't that big of a deal in the end, but the reaction was... revealing.

Aus here, for complex dental I can claim up to $800 annually on my extras cover, need braces for around $8000.

Edit: forgot to mention it'd only have been ~$2000 around 2003 when I was first told I needed them, but my parents, whom paid off our house with a year's combined salary, couldn't afford it. My dad argued it should come out of his existing child support payment, and I didn't get them.

I get where you're coming from, but you're not making the point you think you're making - even on the NHS you'd probably have to go private for that, unless you're on benefits in which case the NHS dentist has to see you, but will make you wait months and months for an appointment with their one burnt out NHS dentist who will do their best within their limits because they're only allowed to do the bare minimum on NHS patients (edit just to clarify: this isn't how it always was, and not "intentional" that people can't see an NHS dentist, there just aren't any, a result of dire underfunding and basically privatisation).

Yes, social healthcare is amazing and worth fighting for, but social healthcare under capitalism will still always favour profit over people, and the results are clear to see, which is why the only viable long term solution is to abolish capitalism, not fight for the stale crumbs it's willing to give.

Before this week, Canada.

In Canada eyes and teeth are not considered "health" and thus is also not covered by universal healthcare.

It was up to the provinces and employers to implement whatever coverage they wanted for those. In my place, dental care is free if you are under 18, or if you live from government assistance. The only way to get healthcare for your teeth as an adult, is to have a dental plan at work. So a young adult working minimum wage in a convenience store doesn't have dental insurance.

From personal experience, I didn't have dental insurance between 18 and 30 because I had low wage jobs.

However this is going to change a bit soon, because the social-democrats just pushed a vote to expand dental insurance to everyone that needs it. It's not universal yet but now people with low wage jobs will be covered.

Dental is tricky in many countries. It's delicate, easy to go wrong and very often painful. In Poland I used to do simple things like fillings using public insurance and I've heard many times that I'm crazy and for sure they will fuck it up. I think it's simply because it's it expensive and will go wrong people will think it was inevitable. But if it's free and goes wrong people will say it's because it was free. So in my experience even if public insurance covers dental people tend to avoid it.

The USA

Go ahead and live with dentures then. When your bottoms pop out every time you eat steak, remember what you said here. Teeth are absolutely essential. It’s cheaper to take care of your natural teeth than it is to drop 30k on implant-supported dentures, or if you’re broke, just basic ones.

Source: I work in the field. Bottom dentures are by far the most disappointing service we do.

lol at the thought of “this part of your body that you use multiple times every day for vital survival functions and various other functions like communication is mostly cosmetic, you’ll do just fine without!”

Teeth bleaching is cosmetic, crowns and fillings and whatever are restoration of normal functioning.

If we were meant to be ok without properly functioning teeth, we wouldn’t have teeth in the first place. That’s a stupid argument biologically speaking. (No offense intended to you personally, ofc)

I understand that Americans have a disproportionate focus on the -specifically cosmetic- aspects of oral hygiene, whiteness and straightness, primarily, but to say that most oral care is unnecessary and purely cosmetic is just absolute hogwash.

Mind you this is from someone who intends to get all her teeth ripped out and replaced with implants because no matter what I do, I average a cavity every 2-4 years. It’s cheaper in the long run to get implanted dentures than to fight my genes. So I understand entirely the being toothless by 30 (tho I’m 36 and still have all of them, I think I have more fillings than teeth at this point, and if most of those weren’t done free in the military I’d just have no teeth) but I disagree vehemently with the idea that that’s totally fine and won’t cause problems.