The Drill That Wasn't

On Tuesday, at my quarterly dentist appointment^[1], the maintenance dentist detected a cavity under the left abutment of my bridge. There was evidence of decay and "softness", which is not a quality you want around the anchor point of the prosthetic which makes up for your front three teeth.

They wanted me to make an appointment as quickly as possible to have that tooth drilled-and-filled. Thursday proved unfeasible (meeting at work), so I scheduled the appointment for today.

A different dentist at this office does the drilling. Thanks to all the metal in my bridge, he couldn't get a good view from the x-rays that were taken last June, so the hygienist took a couple more from different angles.

But that didn't help.

At that point, the dentist sat down, did a little picking around, then sat back and took off his mask. "I don't think we should do anything today."

Buh?

He explained that, in order to get out the decay and fill it properly, we'd have to move the bridge abutment first. But that couldn't be done without weakening the entire structure. If he tried to get in around the sides of the abutment, there would be gaps and room for further decay anyway.

"So let's just keep an eye on it."

He repeated what his partner said on Tuesday: it's a good bridge, overdesigned and amazing that it has lasted (almost) thirty years, but it's not going to last forever. "You should start looking at replacing it."

Sorry, no, I have two daughters to get thru college first. This thing has to last another ten years.

^[1] Yeah, dentists make you come in twice as often for a while if you skip going to them for fifteen years.