My Life As A Dental Patient, Chapter 64 - The Quandary Continues

I really didn't want to post this on my blog. I mean honestly, I'm an adult.  I've been around the block more than a few times.  I should be able to handle difficult situations when they present themselves.  I am, however, the queen of indecision.  When I go to a store to buy something for myself such as a prim ornament or even a candle ... anything really ... woe to me if there are more than 1 of them available.  I have to stand there & compare however many items there are, sitting them down somewhere in the store, lining them up so they all face the same way, & then turning them all at different angles to see if there is maybe something I don't like about them.  Then I check the bottoms, then I check the tops, & by that time I've usually narrowed down the choices to one if I'm lucky & I can go merrily to the checkout counter.  This can sometimes present an entirely different kind of nightmare for me when the salesclerk says with a smile "Oh , we have these in the back in boxes.  Let me get you one that hasn't been on display."  The anxiety shoots through me in an instant.  What to do?  What to do? In the past I have been unable to do anything except pray that when I get home the unopened item will be just as nice, or even better, than the one I spent who knows how much time painstakingly examining & choosing. Thankfully as I have gotten older I have gotten a wee bit bolder & I will say "No, I want the one I have here."  People look at me like I'm from another planet but hey, maybe I am   : )

So ... on Tuesday I saw the second opinion dentist (Dr. B) who was very, very nice.  The office was lovely.  There were green plants here & there as well as little fountains on a table or two in the waiting area producing the sound of gently trickling water.  Very quiet & soothing music was coming from a speaker hidden out of sight.  When I sat down in the exam chair the first thing the assistant asked me was if I wanted a heated lavender aromatherapy neck wrap!  Imagine! Not only this but I was the only patient scheduled in my time slot.  Dr. B spent a surprisingly long time examining me & discussing my concerns.  To sum it up, the good news is that my current dentist (Dr. A) did not cause any permanent damage to my teeth by doing the bite adjustments, but that is really the only good news. Dr. B says she is sure that the whistling is happening because when Dr. A did the bite adjustments she did not do them evenly so one bottom tooth is a bit longer than the others & this is the source of that problem. She told me that the bridge I have temporarily cemented now (bridge #3) is very opaque & does not look like real teeth. She also said that it is made with a thick metal core covered with porcelain & this is not the best construction. Also, the bridge is not lining up correctly with the bottom bridge.  Since the bottom bridge needs to be replaced in the future, the optimum thing would've been to do both bridges at the same time to get a perfect fit. Doing one bridge first & then trying to match it up with another one later on down the line is apparently very difficult.  At the end of our visit Dr. B said "Would you like me to write a letter for you to take to your current dentist explaining my findings?"  I said I would appreciate that very much & then sat in the waiting area for a while (I forgot to mention there is a massage chair in there!) as she composed it.  It is very nice & very thorough.

I have been fraught with indecision since leaving Dr. B's office & this indecision has brought with it massive anxiety.  My current dentist can be nice (she did cut me a break on pricing because I don't have dental insurance) but she also has a tendency to be not nice at times.  There have been a few occasions when she has told me one thing & then during a later appointment she says or does something to contradict it.  The times when I have brought this to her attention she tries to make me feel as though I am remembering things incorrectly.  Then there was that one time she was downright nasty to me (I wrote about this in a previous blog post) & when she saw the look on my face she quickly smiled & said "I'm just kidding." Anyway, I have been really worried about how she is going to react to me coming into the office & telling her I went for a second opinion & the opinion is "there are some problems here."  However, this morning I think I have come up with the answer.  What I am thinking now is that I will keep my appointment with Dr. A tomorrow but not tell her that I've met with Dr. B.  Instead I will tell her that I'm just not feeling comfortable with how things are & "I don't know, maybe I'm just imagining things but I would like to see a few other dentists for second opinions to ease my mind before getting the bridge cemented permanently." (Needless to say I want to also remove my concern that Dr. B might not know what she is talking about.)  If I put it to her that way ... placing the doubt on myself & not on her ... perhaps she won't take offense.  If she does, I guess I will just tell her I'll take her up on her prior offer to put the plastic bridge back in & give me my money back.  Hopefully she will remember telling me this.  

Does this sound like a good plan to you?  I will, of course, be hopped up on Xanax when I go to see her.  

Life is never simple for easily influenced stitchers   : (