Haven't been to dentist in 8 years, how bad will it be when i finally go?

If it hurts to have sugar in your mouth, you are prob heading towards root canals, as is. Waiting too much longer will risk infections which would just be that much more nastiness, ya know?

I suggest looking for a dental school in your area - I have no insurance, myself, and the only problem I have with the school is the speed. I don't complain while I'm there, though - it's a *student* working on me and the lack of speed is entirely safety measures to make sure he doesn't mess up my teeth, so complaining seems silly to me...

Back on topic - University of Louisville clinic has a $90 up front requirement for all new students, but that is towards the charges incurred in first appointment(s) - comprehensive exam was free, I believe, and x-rays were not enough to take the whole $90. They just need proof of intention to pay bills, really...

If you have bunches of cavities, you might look for licensing exams. That is the exams where the students who are graduating and the dentists who need a new license from a move get their licenses. My student isn't graduating till next year but he passed my files round and found three other people to use me this year, got five free fillings that way and he is eyeballing two 'defects' in my enamel that might progress to full cavities by the time he graduates.

If you go to a clinic to start getting work and you are dead broke, you can ask for info on that kind of free dental work and/or request that the treatment schedule be spaced out enough to make the payments easier. Also, they do have payment plans - I haven't done them because I need a crown and I have to qualify as 'current' for them to put it on me, and I've gotten three different definitions on 'current'. So I just borrow money and stay ahead of the bill. But when my student offers appointments that are just a week apart he does ask if that is too close for the bills, and there is no penalty for refusing. U of L *does* require being available at least twice a month, but they just use that policy to penalize people who are actually wasting the students time by getting examined and then only showing up every now and then when the students really need reliable patient flow to practice.

You mentioned you floss, which will make the students pretty sympathetic - really, they have spent a lot of time with their own faces rather close to nasty mouths of people who can't manage to brush before an appointment, if you are making an attempt right now dental school students will not give you an attitude about past mistakes since they deal with worse all the time. That is one of the upsides - the only comments I've gotten about past dental habits were jokes that acknowledged I've improved.

And if you worry about needles, my student mentioned that they practice on EACH OTHER the various different injections before they reach the clinic. He's actually pretty awesome with a needle, and he *knows* which injections hurt more, because while he has no cavities he has had others sticking needles in his mouth.

Sorry for wordiness, good luck with your teeth!

I see patients all the time who haven't been to the dentist for a long while that do everything they can to take care of their teeth. You can have cavities so small that you may not even know they are there. If your teeth haven't hurt in a while, thats great, but sometimes decay can be bigger then what you are seeing. you may only see a tiny hole, but in that hole could be a massave spread of decay under the enamel. Kinda like looking down in a volcano, the opening is only so big, but whats inside is alot more then you expected! So when you go to the dentist, expect to hear that you may have a couple cavities that are not to bad and may even be filled without getting numb. Also, if you are sensitive to hot, cold or sweets indicades that you may have a cavity. Since you haven't been to the dentist for a while, you will need a cleaning too. People are due for cleanings every 6 months. You can't brush away what a cleaning at the dentist can. Tarter, plaque, calculus and stains will not come off with brushing no matter what the toothpaste companies say!