Today’s blog post is not really about cycling, but it is about something important to my health that could negatively affect my plans for the rest of 2023. The next 5 weeks will be filled with intervals of discomfort that have nothing to do with the bike.
Ever since I have had teeth, I have had bad teeth. I had a natural underbite, which is not ideal for dental health or for facial attractiveness. At the age of 11, I got braces. My orthodontist believed he could correct the problems with my bite if only he could move my teeth far enough. When my family relocated, my new orthodontist immediately realized that my problems could be corrected only with oral surgery. He spent the next 2 years moving everything back to where it had been originally. Finally, in August 1983, at the age of 18, I had oral surgery. Soon thereafter, the braces came off. That’s right: I had braces for 8 years. As you can imagine, that wasn’t good for my social life, and it wasn’t good for my teeth overall. Having braces presented cleaning challenges that led to cavities, and moving the teeth so far over such a long time led to blunted roots. On an X-ray, many of my teeth look like baby teeth, and those short roots make it easier for my teeth to break. Now, any cavity is potentially a death sentence for the tooth in question, as it is not always possible to drill into my teeth without breaking them. Nice, huh?
Last Friday morning, I began a very aggressive course of procedures that will fix most of my dental problems by the end of September. My dentist estimates I need about $18,500 worth of treatments to replace the missing teeth and to repair the damaged ones. I signed up for the first $5,200 worth of treatments. The big, as-yet-unaccepted expense is for 2 implants with a bridge between them on the upper left side. A few years ago, I got a partial denture to fill that gap. I haven’t been wearing it … not because it’s uncomfortable, but because it alters my speech in a way I cannot tolerate. The dentist tells me that, with practice, I should be able to speak normally while wearing the denture, so I’m going to try again to get used to it. The partial denture was intended to be temporary. I didn’t realize that when it was made for me. A permanent one would fit better and take up less space, making it easier for me to speak normally. So, I might replace the temporary denture at a considerable costs savings vis-à-vis the implants, but only if I can train myself to speak normally.
The denture versus implants question will not be resolved this year, and insurance is partly to blame. I will exhaust my 2023 dental benefits on the other procedures, so any additional procedures will wait until 2024 when I have a new pool of insurance money. (Almost all of these expenses are out-of-pocket, but I will take any little bit of assistance the insurance company throws my way.) Whatever happens, my mouth will be in much better shape by the end of September. I am scheduled to see the dentist on 4 occasions between August 31 and September 29. I would have liked to complete this work earlier in the year, but I didn’t count on being in Pennsylvania for so long. Now there’s a chance that it will disrupt my training and racing. I should be OK, though, because my biggest targets this season are 4 cyclocross races near Philadelphia in mid-October. Tentatively, I plan to go back to Mom’s on October 13 for a 2- or 3-week stay. That will put a smile on Mom’s face, and I might finally have one on mine.
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