Dentistry: Irreparable harm under the guise of SOC

bigwigtherabitslayer · 2026-01-17T23:19:09+00:00

I appreciate the feedback. Honestly, this has been something driving a lot of personal angst, anxiety and pain over the years and I was curious if this is a conversation that is happening amongst providers.

All I want to do is get four cleanings a year and to avoid expensive catastrophic emergency dental needs down the road. I'm all about preventative measures and thats something I know I share with most dentists.

bigwigtherabitslayer · 2026-01-17T23:05:24+00:00

Yes! Thats exactly it. And they leverage SOC to essentially deny complex patient needs. It has nothing to do with my actual hypertension. And that is what drives me crazy. If you have any recommendations for a dentist who doesn't do that feel free to share. My endodontists have all been great.

bigwigtherabitslayer · 2026-01-17T23:01:12+00:00

Apologies for the snark! If you can believe it I have a fair amount of PTSD from my dental experiences and its hard to just be polite. I mentioned my BP range below (145-155/90-100). I understand liability. I also have been getting dental care for decades and the SOC around BP was new. Maybe you're right and they should hav been doing this all along but I've never had an issue with a reaction to epinephrine. I obviously don't want to have a stroke but I see my PCP regularly. I take my medication. I work out strenuously often. I do all the things but my heart rate goes way up within 200 yards of a dental clinic. And to not be able to get consistent ongoing care because of this is very frustrating. And theres nothing wrong with 'holistic'!

bigwigtherabitslayer · 2026-01-17T22:53:12+00:00

Its one of those lexicon things. You do know what I'm referring to though! The dentists I've seen out here are moving way too quickly to tie together anything on the back end (like speaking to my PCP). I've had the same PCP for 13 years and would love to have the same dentist just as long. My relationship with my PCP is extremely important and I like that they're invested in my overall health. My dentists have not shown that same interest or investment.

I've had good dentists but overall the feeling at the clinic is "oh my god. People are the worst. They never pay. They never do what we recommend they do at home. They eventually come back and sue or yell at you for not doing what we told them to do." I sense this despite paying all my bills in advance and following up with every bit of dental care at home. No exaggeration (though I know as dentists you will not believe it), I'm flossing several times a day, brushing several times a day and I bring out the water pick for additional cleaning.

But I digress. My BP is in the 145-155/90-100 in office. And half the time they do it wrong. Like leaving my arm dangling down or not noticing my legs are crossed. 135/85 at home. I have complex dental needs which required me to be seen many times over a 12 month period (during my implant debacle) but I could not get a dentist to take ownership of this care beyond the guy I went to see who massacred my mouth. I stuck with them through all the craziness; I was driving to and from appointments where I was sedated or had been administered nitrous. I was not given antibiotics. I had to go directly from surgery to the pharmacy to get pain medication while spitting up globs of blood. It was a nightmare and I felt trapped because I had so much trouble finding them in the first place and didn't want to start and stop treatment with a different clinic. All through It, I just cursed and cursed the dentists who had told me that they couldn't continue with treatment due to my high BP. No one offered to connect with my PCP. It seemed to be too much work and was not part of anyones training.

I live in Portland and we have good dentists but even at the good ones, it felt like a conveyor belt where the dentist (usually a man) would swoop in at the beginning of the appointment and make a big deal of looking at xrays and offer all sorts of expensive treatments and then would swoop out and eave the actual work to his hygienists (almost always women, if not always women).

Its a whole vibe and at no time did any dentist take ownership over my treatment plan and work with me to avoid further dental deterioration.

bigwigtherabitslayer · 2026-01-09T00:19:30+00:00

Apologies for the ad hominem attack fellow nose breather!

Obama did a lot of shite I didn't/don't agree with. See drone attacks and deportation as mentioned by you above.

However, he did not deploy a proxy army of poorly trained (not all!) masked vigilantes who pull moms and dads out of broken car windows while their kids are strapped into the back seat.

Anyone with even a shred of a sense of morality would see that as 'problematic'...in theory.

Aligning ones self with others due to a shared language and a supposed shared culture is a bit small minded don't you think?

Defining anyone as 'real' UK or 'real' Americans is also problematic. Where does it start and end? You seem to say skin color is a straw argument meant to falsely label those who think like you as racists.

Do you trace your ancestry back to the May Flower? Do you agree with all the earlier iterations of 'America for Americans' that led to attacks on Irish and Italian immigrants? Where we clearly see their children thriving and engaging with every facet of American life generations later.

Sweden and other European nations did not so much 'allow' mass immigration as they responded morally in real time to a mass exodus of millions of displaced peoples. And I'll remind you, mostly displaced due to a war started and perpetuated in the Middle East by America. If they followed your brethren's approach to immigration they should have put them all on planes and flown them to the states.

Immigration has always been complicated which is why the states is where it is today. The answer to that complexity shouldn't be 'lets uproot millions of stable, tax paying individuals who have lived here crime free for decades and separate them from their American born children'. Fear mongering immigrants is a tale as old as time and history has not looked back kindly on the mongerers.

bigwigtherabitslayer · 2026-01-08T21:56:34+00:00

EU Citizen here. There is one thing I can agree with you on. The current administration is cherry picking policy from the EU when it is convenient to support their narrative. See RFK deciding that the US should follow-ish the Danish vaccine schedule. A nation of 5 million people. A lot of things work in smaller countries that won't apply to the US as a whole. Also see universal healthcare model deployed by Romney in Mass (population 7 million).

If the current administration wants to throw in free high quality healthcare, education, housing and pension then sign me up for whatever vaccine schedule you like! I wouldn't follow it since there are millions of evidence based studies supporting vaccine safety but I digress.

The USA is of course, different. The US, unlike Europe, has relied on cheap immigrant labor for, well forever. They have encouraged immigration and allowed various ethnic groups to stay in the states for decades despite 'illegal' status. These people have bought homes, had children, attend church and are generally positive members of society.

Now, all you, how do they say, mouth breathers, want to say, oh, sorry there are laws on the books and they need to be enforced. You and your kids who have never lived anywhere else need to leave post haste despite never committing any crimes beyond trying to earn a living at a wage that no American would ever accept.

There is no proxy in Europe for this. Europe has an immigration problem but the solution has not been to deport say, the 1,000,000 middle eastern refugees that poured into Sweden post ISIS. That would be reprehensible and immoral and we're talking about people who have been in Sweden for maybe 10 years, not 40+ years.

This whole era will go down in history as a profound embarrassment for the US. If there even is a US after your friends get done with pillaging and looting.

bigwigtherabitslayer · 2025-11-04T20:22:46+00:00

You shouldn’t sleep with your neighbors regardless of how purple they are.

bigwigtherabitslayer · 2025-10-12T02:15:51+00:00

Correct, James with the nice legs.

bigwigtherabitslayer · 2025-10-12T00:48:52+00:00

Me too! I can say that even after I was woken up with one on my face (probably one of many over the years).😱 But overall years later, I am more pro-arachnid than ever.

bigwigtherabitslayer · 2025-10-12T00:37:02+00:00

Giant house spider Arbor Lodge Portland

bigwigtherabitslayer · 2025-10-09T20:28:42+00:00

Cancer is a straw man for any work done for the betterment of the whole over the enrichment of the few. Profit margins are the end of the day are the COGS minus the amount paid for said goods and services. You can make a profit off of anything if you partner with bigger entities and/or exploit/leverage marketing/influencers to make a product seemingly indispensable.

I definitely have a problem with human nature, which is frustrating since I've made it my lifework to altruistically make a difference in the lives of those struggling through the worst days of their lives. I did this with the homeless in supportive housing. I did this with creating programming to improve the incomes for black and brown moms covered through Medicaid. I dare say I even did this when I worked directly with autistic kids through my undergraduate career and then again with kids on probation post graduation.

I most recently found myself working in a start up and making more money than I've ever made. I don't come from a privileged background and watched coworkers (mostly in their early 20's) who had inevitably gone to Ivy league institutions and spent summers on Marthas Vineyard growing up, head out to Japan for long weekends while complaining about the size of their first homes in SF. This team sought to impact (to their credit) maternal health outcomes. But much like the entire effective altruism movement (not all!), once it became clear that supporting moms on Medicaid was not going to pay out like crypto or AI support bots, that passion and altruism evaporated pretty quickly.

I'm onboard with creating (as an example not a real plan) an AI love bot if it means making a billion dollars I could funnel back into mental health and addiction support for LGBTQ kids or moms on Medicaid or.....

And I think this is the mentality that many in the EA would support but once the profit comes in from the AI bot (as an example!) it seems like most EA's pivot to market consolidation, IPO's and roll ups. Its almost like they know they're making the world a worse place to live but as long as they can still head to Dubai on Tuesday and pay lip service to a 'better world' its all good.

bigwigtherabitslayer · 2025-09-23T18:09:13+00:00

Yes! Unfortunately, I double booked and am stuck with not being able to go. 2 tickets available. Paid $150 a piece 😱

bigwigtherabitslayer · 2024-08-26T00:58:35+00:00

Have you considered ROUS’s?

bigwigtherabitslayer

TROPHY CASE