Well played, doctor. Well played. Was asking because your patient seemed more than a little out of it and also pretty sanguine about getting his choppers yanked unexpectedly.

https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/635...teveMartin.jpg

3 wisdom teeth still in. Crowded teeth and a broken filling. Where would you begin?

Depends.

If you aren't having problems cleaning the wisdom teeth i'd leave them. If you're a bit older, wisdom teeth removal can be a bit of a bugger so unless they are causing issues, leave them.

If you want to address the crowding, you'd probably wanna get them out and do some invisalign or some kind of ortho.

Likely, I'd say "lets fix this filling and are you worried about the crowding? If no and it's not really causing any issues with cleaning those areas, lets just let it ride".

In the end, I would give you the options and let you decide what you wanna do.

That invisalign stuff/ things actually works ?

Oh yeah, works great. I do a fair amount of it, but I'm pretty picky about what I do it on.

My sons' orthodontist would not like this.

Yeah, they think only an orthodontist can bend a wire. Whatever.

:p

Finally getting around to this thread.

Running two practices full time has worn me down lately. Couple interesting stories for you guys though.

Got yelled at by the mom of a 15 year old kid this week. Had a small cavity on an upper right molar think it was a first molar. Anyway, very small pit and fissure decay, discussed with the kid "hey, i can probably do this without giving you a shot and it won't be sensitive or hurt, just might feel a bit cold. If it does, let me know, I'll give you some anesthetic, no biggie".

Kid says ok, we do the filling, no problem. Kid never moves, says anything. I ask at the end, "that go ok?"

"Yeah, didn't feel a thing, thanks I was dreading the shot" .

Walk into my office and next thing I know mom is irate at the front dest. I walk up there to de escalate and she unloads on me.

"How dare you do a filling with no anesthetic, you've traumatized my child, I'll be suing etc" I tell her I felt for that size of decay an injection was unnecessary and that it's very common to do it this way.

She storms out.

Oh well.

You should have hired someone to drive to her place of work and yell at her for being a ****.

I would like to.

Oh well.

She's just mad that no one wants to fill in her cavity.

Damn I needed a root canal for the first time ever. My last molar next to my wisdom tooth (I have all four grew in fine) was hurting really bad on that side when i chewed or ate cold food. Sure it was infected.

got the root canal and three days before getting the temp crown put on I bit into a burrito and BAM the tooth broke clear down the middle and side. had to get it extracted. First time. Ouch.

Getting an implant. $$$$ F-me But

Of all fields, Dentist's seem to retire the earliest

Damn. Have seen it happen a lot.

Second molars are so close to the hinge angle they take a beating. My dad had a 2nd molar blow up and need a root canal. No chance I was doing it, but I was gonna go in and take the nerve out (pulpotomy) and get him out of pain. Found a crack and had to extract it.

If you had to lose a tooth, second molar would be the one to lose.

The ones retiring now are. My generation I doubt it.

Between school and practice purchase it takes a while to pay off