The Anchorage, Part 3

[Lorraine]

Hi Terre and thanks

Had to look up TMJ, Miss B and it sounds awful! Hope my massive smile fest doesn't give it to me. I may have to moderate my welcome home!

 

[Miss B]

My dentist and I figured it out eventually. I was opening my mouth too wide when I yawned. Once I realized that what's did it, I started placing my hand over my mouth so that the base of my hand (just above the wrist) was under my chin, thereby limiting how wide my mouth opened when I yawned. It eventually went away, but it took months, and it's the type of pain that no pain killer (other maybe morphine) could get rid of. Not pleasant at all.

 

[Lorraine]

Sounds dreadful! I shall keep it in mind because I do tend to yawn so wide my head done nearly falls off. My social skills deteriorate when it's only the boat looking at me

 

[Miss B]

 

[Pendraia]

I'd never heard of TMJ either Lorraine...

Glad to hear that you got it all sorted MissB.

 

[Miss B]

It was a very long time ago, and I just happened to be at the dentist for a check up, and mentioned it to him. He immediately knew what it was, though it took some back and forth Q&A before we realized what had caused it.

 

[Pendraia]

hmmm....dentists...shudders!

 

[Lorraine]

In 2014 I went to the dentist for the first time in 19 odd years. I had had stabbing pain in one of my molars and thought it needed to come out. The lovely dentist decided it had died and was about to give me a jab when she thought she better test it. She shot a squirt of air in it, I screamed, said a very bad word and it was determined that no, it wasn't dead. It was cracked instead, so she patched it up and sent me off. I didn't even get a lecture about not visiting often enough. She did say if everyone's teeth were like mine she'd be out of a job

 

[Miss B]

Oh you were lucky. Usually a dead nerve means a visit to the periodontist. I've had that happen a couple/three times. You're also lucky she was able to patch it, and didn't want to cap it. I have a number of those too.

 

[Lorraine]

Thursday is drawing to a close. After my trip to the mall I decided on a dash of culture so went into the city and visited the Auckland City Art Gallery. It's a cracker, free entry and a damn fine collection. I came out feeling more intelligent I believe it's a good idea to expose oneself to the art of the past and present, even if a lot of the present makes me shake my head (why is a bunch of clothes hanging on hangers on a portable clothes rack considered art? Beats me). The Goldie collection of Maori of the 1800s and early 1900s is gorgeous. This is one I saw today. Painted in 1906 in Auckland.

 

[Lorraine]

It was either patch it or pull it, Miss B, no money in my budget for anything else. We are really lucky in Northland to have a funded dental health clinic at Whangarei Hospital. You can't get a quick appointment but you do get 1 hour for $40 which includes everything; consultation, X-ray, filling, extraction. They do not do cosmetic dentistry so if a tooth is too bad, out it comes but they really try hard to save what you have. I have to make another appointment for another molar which I will try to get done on my next housesit in March. I've already put it off for six months...

 

[Pendraia]

Sounds like our dental hospitals...

Love the image...

 

[Terre]

I hope that tooth is easily taken care of too, Lorainne.

That is a lovely image. I still find white Maori startling, though. Here out West you didn't have enough cases of "going native" to have large populations of white Indians developing and the majority of intermarriage has been native joining white culture.

 

[Satira Capriccio]

That is a beautiful painting!

Yeah. I have problems with TMJ off and on. I've had it flare up during a dentist visit because I've had to keep my mouth open wide for way too long.

It's nice when things like that decrease in frequency as we get older. Good thing, since other things start hurting.

 

[Miss B]

I almost had another flareup when at a periodontist visit years ago, because he was doing everything in one visit. Usually they clean out the dead root, and you come back to finish the following week, but this guy was known for getting it done all in one sitting, so having my mouth open for that long was hard.

 

[Miss B]

@Lorraine I think I've seen adverts for dental clinics, but from what I understand, here they're not associated with, nor part of a hospital.

 

[Terre]

@Lorraine I think I've seen adverts for dental clinics, but from what I understand, here they're not associated with, nor part of a hospital.

It depends on the clinic. Here the local public health clinic includes a dentist as well as doctors. They also have a several month long waiting list. If you can afford it you can get seen much quicker at one of the two other dentists in town.

 

[Miss B]

Ahhh, dental work has always been an expense for me, because the firm I worked at for 40 years, only supplied very good health insurance, but not dental insurance. I think their reasoning was because dental insurance doesn't cover the same 80% as our health insurance does, and it was more expensive. Since they paid for it, we didn't, it was an expense they didn't want to incur.

Now that I'm a Senior Citizen, my old health insurance from the firm is my secondary, and Medicare is my primary, so I don't really pay much except for the co-pay for my meds. I never applied for the part of Medicare that covers that. Luckily my prescriptions are generic and cheap.

 

[Lorraine]

Morning all

ONE MORE SLEEP!!!!!!! I don't think I could be happier unless it was tomorrow already

A glorious sunny day in Auckland and I plan on spending it sorting out my luggage and doing some packing. Aunty Bernie and I are also going to watch The Woman in Gold dvd this arvo...a film I've been wanting to see. My aunt is a much happier lady than lately as yesterday she had a hearing test and her hearing aids revamped. So now we can watch the movie with the sound down

 

[Satira Capriccio]

Yay! One more sleep!