Dentistry is less scientific and more gratuitous than people think (2019)
Near the beginning of the pandemic, I had a pretty bad toothache spring up out of basically nowhere. Bad enough that sleeping was difficult and eating was impossible. I went to see a dental surgeon (I forget the proper name for this) and he told me I needed a root canal, and backed it up with X-rays. It made sense, I had trouble with this tooth before and a previous dentist told me that a root canal and crown on this tooth, while not strictly necessary at the time, would probably have to be done eventually.<p>The root canal itself was quick, relatively painless, and not super expensive after insurance. But he couldn&#x27;t do a crown, apparently that&#x27;s only a dentist thing. Since my previous dentist closed his office, I asked for a recommendation and he gave me a referral.<p>The referred dentist did the crown just fine but the price gave me sticker shock: about 4x as much as the root canal itself, after insurance! It basically wiped out my HSA account for the year. When I went back for a general checkup and cleaning, the same dentist said they found SEVEN cavities. Which was a little mind-blowing since in the decade previous, my old dentist only filled ONE cavity and always complimented me on the state of my teeth.<p>I asked how much it would cost out-of-pocket to address the cavities and they gave a number somewhat north of $200. Oh, that&#x27;s not so bad to have a bunch of cavities filled. Oh sorry, nope, that&#x27;s the price PER CAVITY. I asked what I was doing wrong because I _had_ been flossing and brushing every day and got a very hand-wavy answer. I was in a literal state of shock so made an excuse about my schedule being full for the next couple weeks and beat a hasty retreat. After the root canal and crown, I literally couldn&#x27;t afford to have seven cavities filled.<p>Fast forward a year and I finally find another dentist for a cleaning and evaluation and to tackle at least the worst of those seven cavities. You want to know how many cavities he found? None. None at all.