Toothache

[jessmarimba]

Honestly, part of my fear of dentists comes from all of the unnecessary work they seem to do. Imaging has become very high tech, allowing them to find "blemishes" in your enamel, which in many cases, will never progress to a cavity. They convince you that it will become a cavity and they should fill it now, before it gets worse. One you drill, a cavity will ALWAYS become worse. They eventually leak around the edges of the filling and will rot out from the inside. So once they drill & fill, they provide themselves with years of work fixing something that was not broken to begin with (replacing fillings, then crowns, then root canals.) How else will they make money?

There have been a few recent studies published on the dramatic increase in dental work in the last few decades (exponential, almost). I don't have time to find one now but will try and search later. I'm sure it is partly tied to diet but also has to do with the monetary aspect.

[OakLeaf]

There was a piece in the NYT within the last month, although I never clicked through to the original studies.

Yeah, last crown I got, I let them fill a "pre" cavity sort of thing on another tooth as long as I was there. Probably shouldn't have.