So, I went to see said denturist on Friday. No surprise, he sang the “Keep Your Teeth as Long as You Can” song to me. Ugh. However, his wife/assistant/receptionist was much more supportive and gave me a lot of information and answered all my questions – from the obvious to the ridiculous. LOVE her.

Dr. Denturist referred me to an oral surgeon for a consult and warned me that I’d have a hard sell trying to get him to yank all my teeth. Ok, I’m warned. And, as we all know, forewarned is forearmed. I shall go loaded for bear.

If I can get Dr. Oral Surgeon to yank all my teeth, I’m looking at $1,800 for two full plates, upper and lower. If I can’t get him to do that and have to settle for partials, I’m looking at $1,900 for two partials, upper and lower. What I’m going to aim for is a full upper plate and a lower partial. These dentures are 20-year dentures, so they’ll take me up to my 65th birthday. In fact, Mrs. Denturist said that the 20-year dentures are actually guaranteed for as long as I own them…with proper relinements, of course…so short of my accidentally flushing them down the toilet or running them over with the car, I’ll be set for a good long while.

She also said that doing a partial on the bottom is a good plan because the bottom dentures are the ones that typically give most people the most problems learning how to deal. She explained that once I got the recommendation from Dr. Oral Surgeon and we agreed upon a plan, I’d have to come back to them to get impressions made for the dentures. Then I’d schedule the surgery out at least two weeks so that I could take my new pearly whites with me to the surgery, after which Dr. Oral Surgeon would stuff those suckers in over my ground-beef gums before I woke up.

That worried me a bit, because I don’t want them making dentures based on these crooked-ass teeth I’m dealing with now. She said they’d have to pretty much mimic the teeth I have for the lower plate, because they have to be able to match my bite and that’s controlled by one’s lower teeth and jaw. But, the good news is I can have STRAIGHT, PRETTY teeth for the full upper plate. No more crooked teeth, no more gap between the two front teeth…a pretty smile at long last.

So, I’m budgeting $2K for the dentures.

Next comes the oral surgeon bill. For my plan to work, I’ll need 12 teeth pulled and two cavities filled. I can hardly wait to hear an estimate for an oral surgeon to pull 12 teeth. My dad bailed on his upper partial at the beginning of this year and had to have 7 teeth pulled to the tune of $1,300. Oy.

My appointment with Dr. Oral Surgeon is on May 13th. I wonder if an interim bar fight might lower his bill a bit…