Mental Dental

So I'm terrible about going to the dentist.  Ace is constantly on my case to go, and I accept his riding me about it because I know he's right, but I've had such bad experiences with dentists, pretty much ever since my first.  It's not that I have terrible teeth, or that dentists have been incompetent.  It's that the nature of the business has changed.

My first dentist was a high school classmate of my dad's.  He was (is) awesome.  When we lived in Chicago, he wasn't particularly nearby, but I think my parents liked the opportunity to catch up, so we'd drive an hour and a half to get there - fit all four of us in in one afternoon.  He had this fantastic blue-on-blue shag carpeting and a matching checkers set with those pretty enamel checkers pieces that make a wonderful clicky sound when you play on the permanent formica table.  The individual rooms each had that wallpaper that was of a forest scene, so as you sat there you were completely enveloped by two-dimensional trees.   I think different rooms were different seasons.  He piped in soft rock - I always think of him when I hear early Michael Jackson or Wings.  Some people wanna fill the world with silly love songs - what's wrong with that?

But the best thing - maybe most dentists do this - was that, at the conclusion of every visit, you could go to his big drawer of toys and pick one.  They were cheapie, Cracker Jack box-type toys, rubber ball-and-paddle games, that one where you give the guy various facial hair arrangements with iron filings and a magnet.  They were great, and it was the ultimate goal of every visit.  I still remember the one time when I was "a little too old" for the toy drawer, but didn't realize it yet.  It was a little awkward when I asked if I could pick out my plastic plaything.  When I got older, I was delighted to note that he had dental health brochures that said things like, Pizza is good for your teeth. 

When my family lived in Hong Kong, we'd save our dental visits for summer vacations at my grandmother's house in Illinois - from there our dentist was a two hour drive away, but it was still totally worth it.  At some point we incorporated a visit to the Sanrio store at the nearby mall, and that made it even better.  Kiki!  Lala!  Keroppi!

Anyway, checkups and cleanings with that first dentist were all business.  Cleaning, fluoride, fill a cavity if you need it.  There was none of this whitening-bonding-capping-GRILL business that dentists seem to be all about these days.  Maybe my dad's friend was, you know, not making a profit out of us, but just doing us a kindness, so he had no incentive to push cosmetic procedures.  But I certainly felt like his priority was his patients' oral health, not how to milk them for unnecessary procedures.

After growing up and moving on, I visited only one dentist who did not ask me, often in so many words, "Is there anything that would make you a little bit happier about your smile?"  They'd push every manner of cosmetic improvement - and it was really burdensome, not just to constantly, politely decline procedures, but to have to be in the position of judging the best thing for your own teeth.  I don't know!!  I didn't go to dental school!!  (The one dentist who didn't do this was an older man near my grandmother's.  All he cared about was cavities.  Is it simply generational?)

So I'm just tired of being sold to.  I'm tired of not knowing whether my dentist is recommending something because I need it or my teeth will fall out, or he's just trying to squeeze me for eight hundred bucks.  (And you know insurance quibbles with whether these things are necessary or cosmetic, so odds are it's coming out of my pocket.)  I want a doctor.  An advisor.  I want a dentist I can trust! 

So it's been too long and the fact that I'm finally getting around to seeking out a dentist now is a huge step for me - it's been at least two years since the last guy recommended I replace all my fillings with tooth-colored ones, and at the same time informed me that insurance probably wouldn't cover it but in any event he was outside my insurance network.  What's finally motivating me now is the usual vanity: I've decided to finally put my home bleaching kit into action and want to start with a perfectly clean set of choppers.

So I started looking for a dentist through word of mouth.  People at work didn't have much to say, so I went to Aetna and got their list of people near me, and took the list to Yelp.  Great feedback.  Told me which dentists were groping their hygienists; which dentists seemed to be excessively salesmanny, which were hamfisted and pokey, and which were guilty of securities fraud.  Just what I was looking for. 

Unfortunately, I didn't come away with the name of someone who seemed really great.  Probably the happy patients are keeping him/her all to themselves.

So instead I thought about finding someone who would seem to be a nice, neighborhood dentist, i.e. somebody with community accountability and an interest in developing long-term relationships built on trust rather than those just looking to churn cleanings and laser stain removals.  I looked for an education at a school I'd heard of (for whatever that's worth).

I found a neighborhood that seemed to have a good sense of community; I found two dentists.  Both went to schools I knew something about - both on the East Coast.  I liked that.  It made me feel they had come out here to settle.  One was, I think, thirty-something; the other, I reckon, my dad's age.  I was tempted by the latter, because of the old-school (i.e. frugal) attitude I apparently prefer, but it turned out he was a surgeon and the young guy was a general care dude.  But that's cool.  I figure, the young guy I can talk to.  And he went to a fancy pants school.  You know, that school whose name makes people drop to their knees.  And he was "accepting new patients!" 

After spending half a day figuring out WHO, I spent another half a day figuring out HOW, on the phone with Aetna, fussing with my internet username and password and incorrect zip code, all in order to make this guy my assigned "primary care" guy.  I was finally in.

So today, I called for an appointment, got the machine (after hours) and left a message.

"I'm a new customer and I haven't yet visited.  I'd like to come in for a checkup and cleaning.  Any day this week, ideally first thing in the morning.  Would you call me back?"

They called me back, still after hours (a good sign!).

"Hello, you called for an appointment?"

"Yes!"

"Your insurance?"

"Aetna DMO!"

"You're a new patient?"

"Yes!"

"First available appointment?"

"Sure."

"Okay, first available appointment is..."

Wait for it.

"I'll put you down for 9 am on October third."

p.s.  Thanks to rebelz.net for the picture.

p.p.s. I know, I know, you've getting jack by way of content this month.  I keep telling myself it's because I want to post more or less chronologically and I think the next thing I want to share is last weekend in Oregon (gorgeous!) and I can't do that till I upload all the pictures, which takes time, to crop and rename and whatnot, plus the camera-computer wire is always floating here and there and I know it'll be a groaningly long post and I just can't get started.  I'll get on it, maybe even tonight.

Comments

[Elizabeth]

Nothing like getting all worked up and gung-ho about something you don't like to do but should and have been putting off... and then having to wait months!
This is why I've been trying out "walk-in" places... for hair cuts and recently an eye exam. I don't think dentists do that, though ;)

[Steve Reed]

My dentist in Toronto had forest wallpaper and an old framed poster of a monkey brushing its teeth on his walls. He was strictly a cavity-and-cleaning guy and would never try to sell new procedures to his patients. Since I left home to go to college, every dentist I have visited has tried to sell me on some new whitening/crown/implant procedure or some "only from dentists" electric toothbrush product - until now. My new neighborhood dentist in Chicago has seen me for a cleaning and to replace a decaying filling, and there has been no mention of beautifying my smile. Thank goodness I found her when I did: my wife is due at the end of September and I was horrified at the idea that our child would visit a dentist of the "used car salesman" persuasion.

(One more thing: eye doctors are now entirely corrupt. When was the last time you saw an eye doctor who didn't try to push lasik? My last eye doctor told me "I did both my kids and my wife and they love it," which sounded like some kind of violation to me. Maybe I don't understand the complex ethics of modern laser eye surgery... perhaps it is always ethically correct to have one's own family as a patient in the context of a surgery that permits the user to stop wearing glasses.)

[TasterSpoon]

Tell me about it, Elizabeth. You'd think I'd be secretly relieved, but no, now I just want to get this thing done so Ace will stop nagging me.

I had a friend who decided to do Lasik, and was debating between this one guy who'd done, like 5,000 patients, including much of the 49ers and a few celebrities; and this other guy who was just starting out and had done, like, five. She kept telling me she was going to go to the beginner because he "needed the business." And I kept trying to shake sense into her. It's your EYES, man!

I dunno. I've heard great first-hand accounts about Lasik, and not-great first-hand accounts. I'm still dubious about the laser waxing; I'm even less likely to throw my eyeball under there.

[TasterSpoon]

Hey Steve Reed, how's the TMJ?

[TasterSpoon]

And re your last question, I don't know much about medical ethics, but don't most plastic surgeons meet their second wives via boob jobs?

[boots]

I got my tooths cleaned this morning and all they tried to sell me on was a free gum massager. I guess they're into relaxed gums. I didn't realize how lucky I was, especially since I noticed a sign on the wall proclaiming that they played some role in an extreme makeover show. So SoCal.

I guess I've also struck it lucky with my eye doc. He refuses to give me Lasik until my eyes do something else to make them more worthy (I stare at cute boys all the time to try to strengthen them, but apparently that's not what it takes to make them Lasik-worthy). And he's always pushing free contacts on me. Maybe he's part of a pro-contact/anti-Lasik mafia though. I'm all suspicious now. Maybe I should use my contact-full eyeballs to go read up on contact-pushing conspiracies.

p.s. I picked the eye doctor because he was old. Sorry new docs, but I like my doctor to have gray hair.

[Steve Reed]

You have an excellent memory. My TMJ is still excitedly bounding along like a child running from the station wagon in the parking lot to the ocean.

And re your comment on plastic surgeons: my plan for meeting a second wife is to hang out at plastic surgery clinics and choosing my favorite "after."

[Steve Reed]

nothing ruins a shitty joke like a grammar typo

[Belle]

Ann - I loved my dentist(s) and hygenist (Jayne) in Palo Alto. I actually miss them. They are right on Middlefield near downtown.

http://www.paloaltodentist.com/

I saw Dr. Lent a bunch and Dr. Nabai gave me fillings - white ones for the price of silver. They are very high tech - they show you on a screen everything they are looking at and talking about.