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
Turns out the
Showtoothbrush is better for you than private ownership of the means of brushing.
See see pee forces children to brush after each meal, literally 1984
One thing I like about living in Belgium and paying an insane amount of tax on my wage is that dental insurance costs 8 euro's a month and covers everything (mostly up to 4000 euro's per year).
I know it's easier said than done but eat less sweets, sugar and other highly processed crap if you can.
dental insurance costs 8 euro’s a month
Why not make it free at that point? Or is your premium low because your teeth are good?
It's cheap because that way a lot of people can get insured and the burden of the insurer gets shared by lots of people. There's also a big tax on your pay going to the state's health and unemployment system. So by paying lots of taxes an additional health insurance for bigger medical costs is cheap.
Why not make it free? I don't know, would be great to work towards to.
I did OMAD and a keto diet for almost a year. Brushed twice a day, flossed at night all of it. My dentist barely had to clean my teeth. It was the fastest I had ever been in and out of the dentist office. lol. Sugar a frequency of eating are the primary factors.
My dentist barely had to clean my teeth.
I didn't know this is a thing dentist do.
Have you never gone to the dentist? That’s most of what they do, floss, scrape away the Tartar, and add fluoride.
I had a hole fixed or something when I was like 5, otherwise I've only had inspections.
Huh, where do you live? (What region/continent, don’t dox obvi)
I think it's not that common everywhere. In The Netherlands my dentist didn't really do any cleaning but in Belgium they do. The man even started polishing my teeth. I had never been that thoroughly cleaned before.
In all the countries I have lived in the cleaning is part of the inspection, and then they schedule a followup secondary visit if something needs more work done. The dentist doesn't do most of the work unless it's something more involved.
Maybe, I have zero clue about dentistry. When I go to the dentist they take the radiography, then feel around with a sharp stick, and that's done in like 10 minutes.
Usually in the "feel around with the sharp stick" stage, they will scrap off plaque and buildup as well.
I mean, it is also just possible you have impeccable dental hygiene and they don't have to do a whole lot. I hate sweets, which has the added benefit of generally keeping my teeth in good condition (minus staining from my coffee habit); my cleanings are pretty fast as well.
what high sugar diets do to someone. the best food for bacteria on our mouths that produce acid by eating that damages teeth
High carb (with most of those carbs being added sugar or HFCS) western diet does that.
It’s not carbs in general, it’s just the extremely poor quality of the carbs in our processed food.
That's what I mean when I say most of the carbs are added sugar or HFCS. A high carb diet of wholegrains and vegetables would be much healthier.
Since the color scale is inconsistent, let's just make it orange just because
Site I got it from: https://smile-365.com/what-countries-have-the-lowest-prevalence-of-cavities/
Actual source: a dental hygienist’s presentation I saw
Some of these are a surprise like Japan being so high and the US being moderate.
