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There's a Local Low-cost Dental Clinic
Apr. 19th, 2023 12:24 pmI found that the local polytechnic school has a dental program that sees people at low cost. They are booking into mid-May, so I made an appointment yesterday morning. Yesterday afternoon they said they had a cancellation for an hour from then and would I like to come in?
So I got seen yesterday. They looked at my teeth and took xrays and found that the break occurred around a deep existing filling in the tooth. They can't get me in to do that fix until May (though maybe they'll have a cancellation?), but they will try to remove and replace the amalgam filling with composite, and rebuild. If that doesn't work, it will require either a root canal plus crown, or an extraction. I suspect it would be an extraction because root canals and crowns are expensive.
But the exam was only $55, and the quote on redoing the filling is about $200, and they've also booked me for 3 sessions for general cleaning and stuff, also in May, which will cost $50 all together. So there is dental care here that I can afford, and it's a relief.
And the rest of my teeth look pretty good, they said, and that's really good to hear too.
I went to the dental clinic dressed basically fem, with my hair down and a salmon v-neck sweater. I don't think I've ever had this kind of professional interaction while looking like me before, so it was a first. Nobody correctly gendered me, but I wasn't really expecting them to. When going through my meds with the dentist, he asked what the HRT meds were for and I told them they're for HRT.
"HRT?" he asked.
"Hormone replacement thereapy for transgender..."
He kind of cut me off with an 'okay' and went on with what he was doing. It seemed like a mostly neutral response: like he'd decided those meds were not relevant to my treatment there and moved on. I'm totally fine with neutral.
Neither he nor the student assistant asked about my gender, but they were fine and professional. I talked to the assistant a little about wanting to work in libraries and she said how much she loved being a school library assistant as an elementary student, so I felt a little connection there.
So I got seen yesterday. They looked at my teeth and took xrays and found that the break occurred around a deep existing filling in the tooth. They can't get me in to do that fix until May (though maybe they'll have a cancellation?), but they will try to remove and replace the amalgam filling with composite, and rebuild. If that doesn't work, it will require either a root canal plus crown, or an extraction. I suspect it would be an extraction because root canals and crowns are expensive.
But the exam was only $55, and the quote on redoing the filling is about $200, and they've also booked me for 3 sessions for general cleaning and stuff, also in May, which will cost $50 all together. So there is dental care here that I can afford, and it's a relief.
And the rest of my teeth look pretty good, they said, and that's really good to hear too.
I went to the dental clinic dressed basically fem, with my hair down and a salmon v-neck sweater. I don't think I've ever had this kind of professional interaction while looking like me before, so it was a first. Nobody correctly gendered me, but I wasn't really expecting them to. When going through my meds with the dentist, he asked what the HRT meds were for and I told them they're for HRT.
"HRT?" he asked.
"Hormone replacement thereapy for transgender..."
He kind of cut me off with an 'okay' and went on with what he was doing. It seemed like a mostly neutral response: like he'd decided those meds were not relevant to my treatment there and moved on. I'm totally fine with neutral.
Neither he nor the student assistant asked about my gender, but they were fine and professional. I talked to the assistant a little about wanting to work in libraries and she said how much she loved being a school library assistant as an elementary student, so I felt a little connection there.
