A based one for once. Note it’s kind of old and the US would be worse by now.
feel attacked by this map correctly identifying that dental care is fucked in my country
legitimately get so much anxiety over the health of my teeth. there are so many problems with them but getting each one examined and corrected costs hundreds of dollars that i never have spare
public health system covers fuck all dental services and the worse it gets the more painful it becomes and the more dental anxiety i accrue, meaning that the affordable procedures i can just walk in and get (ripping teeth basically) terrify me driving me to private services which cost hundreds of dollars and the loop begins again
help me bros i hate it
This is a perfect description of my situation too. The only dental work that I can get covered is checkups and cleanings.
A while back I was told I needed a root canal but they (the clinic I go to) can’t do those and they’re not covered anyway. The other option was to just have the tooth pulled, which the clinic can do for a reasonable fee, but the dentist recommended that I not get it pulled for a bunch of reasons including long term health related reasons. I knew I did NOT want that, so I decided to put off doing anything and just deal with the pain in the hopes I’d be able to pay for the RC later or borrow the money or something.
Many months later I decided enough was enough, I had been in too much pain for too long, I’d just bite the bullet (ha) and pay for it even though I still couldn’t afford it. Went back to the dentist and they said it was too late for a root canal, too much of the tooth had deteriorated. Now the option was to just have it pulled or to have replaced with an implant, which the dentist strongly suggested I do if I could. But doing that would be over a thousand dollars more than the root canal was going to cost! In other words, not possible for a poor person like me. So I just had it fucking pulled, exactly what I had been hoping to avoid.
Now I’m having similar pain on the opposite side of my mouth and I know it’s going to be the same thing all over. Like you said, the loop begins again. I always had healthy teeth, never even had a single cavity until after I was 30. It’s like I’m falling apart, not just my teeth but in all sorts of ways, but I can’t afford to do anything about it.
Why is the west so bad? Is it all the sugar and fizzy sodas?
That is probably a factor yeah, but also many (possibly most?) of the western european countries that have public healthcare do not include dental. And dental is expensive as fuck.
Yeah, back when I was struggling financially I would avoid the dentist like the plague and pray that I never get any major issues
I just ate a whole bag of gummy bears. So, yeah.
I know but it’s a seekrit and I can’t tell you
Also processed food
Decayed and missing => Bad
Filled (so repaired) => Good
I have like 8 Filled, 0 Missing, 0 Decayed. Why would that be bad?
Why would it be equivalent to someone who have no repaired teeth, 5 Decayed and 3 Missing?
It’s the same because the teeth decayed in the first place which is indicative of a diet with too much sugar and processed food that is common in whatever country. Teeth aren’t supposed to decay, they haven’t for most of human history.
In colonial America, most people had lost all of their teeth by age 30. George Washington was a famous example of this.
