Long time readers (if there any) will remember a lot of posts early last year about my dental issues. I ended up getting a few root canals and quite a few more crowns. Looking through transactions on Mint, I found ~$15k of payments to the dentist, and about $3,600 to the endodontist. This also does not include the $1,500 paid by Delta Dental. Anyway, the total was close to $20k for 2020; there was probably more in 2019.
Today was just a cleaning. They had placed me on a three month schedule, but I missed the February appointment due to the transplant surgery and subsequent anti-rejection medications. I finally got clearance a few weeks ago to see the dentist again. The appointment went both better and worse than I thought. Based on my recent experience, I expected a lot more commentary and plaque scraping. It turned out just okay, but the dentist says I need two crown replacements. It has been less than 18 months; I thought they last longer? They are both on my left side so maybe it is due to me chewing on that side only since I had two molars extracted on my right side. There is also another tooth that needs a crown. We knew about this one but did not get it fixed last year. Finally, there are one or two small cavities that he can fill.
If you look at the big picture, it is not as bad as a bypass heart surgery or major organ transplant, but it sucks nevertheless. The dental office is also not really close by so it takes an hour to drive roundtrip.
Life with chronic diseases 