Sometimes I wonder if life smokes after it fucks me. I went yesterday and did the first part of the crown process. I was given yet another temporary fix until their lab can create the permanent one from the impression they got yesterday, which means another appointment in a couple weeks. Here I was thinking that the worst part was the root canal: I was fucking wrong.

My root canal appointment was done in 36 mins and was a cake walk in comparison to the almost 2 hours I spent in the dentist for that crown appointment. I’m not sure if I’m a masochist or just a moron but I literally have a Xanax prescription for dental anxiety and I keep doing these appointments without the medication. All these appointments keep being scheduled when I have to work later that evening so I have been afraid of ending up too stupid from the Xanax so I skip it. It’s one thing when I can go home and sleep the stuff off, it’s a whole other thing to go to work like that.

I’ve been consistently facing my fears with dentists the past 6 weeks since my face got all messed up from that initial tooth infection. I am not an attractive person by any means so when half my face ended up paralyzed for a bit there I freaked out. Add in the fact it’s a front tooth that’s super important to have- I didn’t really have much of a choice but to accept the situation and get it done.

One issue I had this week was the realization that my root canal I had earlier this month was covered by my dental insurance 100%, but when I booked the crown appointment my out of pocket cost came to $410. Call me a radical but the concept of dental appointments not being the same as medical care when it comes to insurance is a crock of shit and a rip off. If you get a tooth infection and don’t get it taken care of you can die- dental care is medically necessary. The fact insurance companies suck us dry via 2 different types of insurance is sheer greed.

I guess that $410 total is much less than what most people pay but my beef is that the root canal left me with a piece of temporary rubber in my head that needed to be finished with the crown procedure- but insurance classes root canals as necessary but crowns are cosmetic? I was lucky as fuck that Blue cross picked up 60% of that crown cost today but for the majority of people I’ve spoken to usually the patients are paying a good amount more.

I am scared shitless for what’s going to happen to my insurance premium monthly costs will be when that Big Beautiful Bill bullshit fully goes into effect. We are currently lucky enough to have my husband’s employer covering a large portion of our monthly premium but if there’s an increase the difference will end up falling on us. Again these are what I used to call “rich people problems” before but are actually just average American problems most people face.

I bring this stuff up as it’s important we start normalizing where we actually are at instead of only showing what’s positive. I’m not sitting on a pity pot by any means but I do hope that sharing this can help even one person feel slightly less alone in their worry over the looming threat of insurance increases hanging over us all.