Chipped Tooth and a Visit to the Dentist

On Thursday evening I was eating a snack and while munching on some peanuts I knew something was wrong. There were some of those salty sweet covered nuts in the mix that were a little harder than the rest and I felt something snap when I bit into one of them. I went up to the bathroom and checked my teeth and sure enough there was one with a jagged edge that wasn't there before. I had chipped a tooth.

It bothered me overnight because my mouth felt a little different. In the morning I called our dentist and made an appointment to get my tooth checked out. The appointment was for Monday morning.

Over the weekend I did not have any discomfort except for the feeling that something in my mouth was different. I was very careful not to eat anything hard because I wasn't sure of the condition of my tooth and I didn't want to make anything worse. That particular tooth did have an old filling in it and I was trying to make sure there was no further damage. I got through the weekend fine.

Monday morning I drove over to the dentist office for my 9:30 appointment. I was in and out in twenty minutes. I went in right away and a technician took an x-ray of my tooth before the doctor came in and examined it.

He recommended that I leave it alone. He thinks everything will be alright once I get used to the different feel in my mouth where the tooth chipped. However, if it was to continue causing problems then they would be able to cap or crown the tooth which would cost about $1,1000 according to the estimate that they provided me. It cost my $57 for the x-ray and exam. That was with a 50% Veterans Discount. The cap would cost $550 with that discount.

I had been going to Advantage Dentistry for almost forty years and just recently discovered they provided a special 50% discount for veterans. I'm not sure when that policy began but I probably would have saved some significant money over the years. Our regular heath insurance only gave us a 20% dental discount.

When I told the office person I was a veteran she asked for paperwork which I said I could email to their office but in the meantime I showed her my dogtag on my keychain. She laughed and I got the discount for the visit.