Happiness money can buy
Oct. 5th, 2012 04:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pktechgirlbackupAnesthetic.
I am lucky to have always had access to frequent top notch dental care. I give dentistry a hard time for handling my trigeminal neuralgia so poorly, but the truth is that without electric toothbrushes and 4x/year cleanings by very good hygienists, I would be in constant oral pain until I died at 40. It's one area I just lost the genetic lottery in.
My dentist talked me into a cleaning with local anesthetic. I kind of thought this was bullshit: we weren't hitting the limits of my pain tolerance, we were hitting the limit of the hygienist's ability to listen to my pain. Which then lowered my pain tolerance because she would stop working and make me reassure her that I was fine, which broke up my attempts to process and not notice that someone was repeatedly stabbing me in the gums. But I agreed, and it turned out to have been a really good idea. Judging just by the amount of blood, She really got in there. Sober, I couldn't have sat still if i wanted too. Numbed out on lidocane, it was basically the world's worst manicure. I'm not having fun, but it is nice to have an hour where nothing is expected of me. I am really lucky to be able to get both the cleaning and the anesthesia without having to sacrifice in other areas.
Money probably does this in a lot of other places too. Even if a rich person and a poor person are suffering nominally the same thing, money lets you escape some of the consequences. Everyone has to go to the DMV, but it's a lot easier when you have flextime. Anyone can use the unemployment office's online system, assuming they have the money for a computer. And so on.
Suppose I could afford the cleaning but not the anesthesia. After the last anesthesia-free cleaning, I was useless for an entire day. I was just too pained and too pissed off at the dental office to accomplish anything. After the anesthesia cleaning, I felt fine. I still took the day off because I already told work I was going to do it and I had a lot of anxiety going in to the appointment, but it wasn't necessary.* I don't enjoy losing a day's pay, but I can afford to do so. Presumably I wouldn't have done that if I absolutely needed the money. But cope is a limited resource, and if I hadn't been able to get it back by staying home and watching Once Upon A Time, I would have found some other way. Alcohol. Abdication of parental duty. Putting off other necessary work. You pay for it somehow.
So I have two points here. First, if you have the money, totally use it to drug yourself during teeth cleanings, even if you have to pay for it out of pocket. I refused for a long time out of some sort of misguided puritanism, plus I was insulted that my dentist kept implying I needed it. Now? I would ask for narcotics if I didn't find them horribly unpleasant. Let modern medicine do one of very few things it's actually good at. Also, don't let your dentist try to talk you into an hour and a half if your back starts complaining half an hour in and the anesthetic lasts an hour. Just come back another day.
Second, it's good to consider what else you're able to buy yourself out of. You don't have to stop doing it, because suffering is not zero sum, but it's good to be aware
*Which is good, because the hour we spent was enough to do exactly one quandrant of my mouth, and I need at least three more of the same, and possibly another cycle after that, at which point I *might* be able to go down to every three months, although it'll take eight appointments because we'll have to do top and bottom separately.
I am lucky to have always had access to frequent top notch dental care. I give dentistry a hard time for handling my trigeminal neuralgia so poorly, but the truth is that without electric toothbrushes and 4x/year cleanings by very good hygienists, I would be in constant oral pain until I died at 40. It's one area I just lost the genetic lottery in.
My dentist talked me into a cleaning with local anesthetic. I kind of thought this was bullshit: we weren't hitting the limits of my pain tolerance, we were hitting the limit of the hygienist's ability to listen to my pain. Which then lowered my pain tolerance because she would stop working and make me reassure her that I was fine, which broke up my attempts to process and not notice that someone was repeatedly stabbing me in the gums. But I agreed, and it turned out to have been a really good idea. Judging just by the amount of blood, She really got in there. Sober, I couldn't have sat still if i wanted too. Numbed out on lidocane, it was basically the world's worst manicure. I'm not having fun, but it is nice to have an hour where nothing is expected of me. I am really lucky to be able to get both the cleaning and the anesthesia without having to sacrifice in other areas.
Money probably does this in a lot of other places too. Even if a rich person and a poor person are suffering nominally the same thing, money lets you escape some of the consequences. Everyone has to go to the DMV, but it's a lot easier when you have flextime. Anyone can use the unemployment office's online system, assuming they have the money for a computer. And so on.
Suppose I could afford the cleaning but not the anesthesia. After the last anesthesia-free cleaning, I was useless for an entire day. I was just too pained and too pissed off at the dental office to accomplish anything. After the anesthesia cleaning, I felt fine. I still took the day off because I already told work I was going to do it and I had a lot of anxiety going in to the appointment, but it wasn't necessary.* I don't enjoy losing a day's pay, but I can afford to do so. Presumably I wouldn't have done that if I absolutely needed the money. But cope is a limited resource, and if I hadn't been able to get it back by staying home and watching Once Upon A Time, I would have found some other way. Alcohol. Abdication of parental duty. Putting off other necessary work. You pay for it somehow.
So I have two points here. First, if you have the money, totally use it to drug yourself during teeth cleanings, even if you have to pay for it out of pocket. I refused for a long time out of some sort of misguided puritanism, plus I was insulted that my dentist kept implying I needed it. Now? I would ask for narcotics if I didn't find them horribly unpleasant. Let modern medicine do one of very few things it's actually good at. Also, don't let your dentist try to talk you into an hour and a half if your back starts complaining half an hour in and the anesthetic lasts an hour. Just come back another day.
Second, it's good to consider what else you're able to buy yourself out of. You don't have to stop doing it, because suffering is not zero sum, but it's good to be aware
*Which is good, because the hour we spent was enough to do exactly one quandrant of my mouth, and I need at least three more of the same, and possibly another cycle after that, at which point I *might* be able to go down to every three months, although it'll take eight appointments because we'll have to do top and bottom separately.
