Modern Dentistry and How It Relates to the Phantom of the Opera

At the end of my dental appointment yesterday, I asked if I had another appointment. Because, I said out loud to the receptionist/scheduler, there's always more work to be done.

I just had a crown put on. The amazing part, to me, was that they have their own lab, and the crown only took about 20 minutes to manufacture. This, after waiting two weeks at my other dentist. Which meant that they had to pound off the well-secured temporary -- double the trouble. So I'm really pleased about that.

The surprising part is that the dentist, Dr. Binh, used dental software to figure out how the crown should be shaped (the photo to the right is actually him and a visualization of my changing tooth). It was an irregular shape, due to the fact that my previous dentist left some real tooth there. So the new tooth would look like the Phantom of the Opera's face: half real face (tooth), half mask (porcelain crown).

I can really get used to this kind of modernization. What I'll never get used to is the time every appointment takes (2.5 hours this time), and, of course, the cost.

P.S. Every time I go into a medical workshop, or whatever medical, they always ask when my last dental appointment was, my last optometrist's appointment, etc. Medical professionals have finally caught on that it's all interrelated. If I have rotten teeth, it's going to figure heavily into my health.