never seen the point to them, it's not too much of a burden to have both reading and distance glasses.
― vodkaitamin effrtvescent (calzino), Thursday, 14 March 2024 08:26 (seven months ago) link
i kind of agree but the thing is i did get some reading glasses from a store in the airport and i basically have to hold a book 2 inches from my face for them to work. :(
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 14 March 2024 08:35 (seven months ago) link
tracer, i found the exact same thing. a week later and i either don't do it so much or don't notice it so much (but yes, it's a thing, i don't think the lenses can curve to fit the frames and be correctly curved to correct the vision)
― koogs, Thursday, 14 March 2024 10:22 (seven months ago) link
anyone have some more up-to-date studies on implants? I have one, "need" another, but have heard mixed reports about long term stability?
Anecdotally, my implant is still going strong for 24 years now.
― Jeff, Thursday, 14 March 2024 10:45 (seven months ago) link
Tracer, give it some time. IME progressive lenses take a couple of days for your brain to rewire where to look. It's incredible to me that the brain does this so quickly and on its own (in my case).
― il lavoro mi rovina la giornata (PBKR), Thursday, 14 March 2024 13:41 (seven months ago) link
I'm just glad the tooth that fell out wasn't the one with cyanide in it.
― pplains, Thursday, 14 March 2024 13:56 (seven months ago) link
they stuck it back in today. it turned out it had split in half, and the other half was still in there. how long will it last? i said. “could be next week, could be 5 years from now.” well it only cost £25. thank u based nhs
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 14 March 2024 14:17 (seven months ago) link
xpost I tend not to floss, my teeth are very tight together and its very difficult
i have this issue as well. i've have had good success (can actually get the floss between my teeth and get the floss out without fighting) using glide brand floss and some of the new waxed floss brands.
― that's not my post, Thursday, 14 March 2024 14:53 (seven months ago) link
my dentist has told me that interdental brushes are better. i hate the waste they produce but i use them now and they do seem to work very well.
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 14 March 2024 15:04 (seven months ago) link
I've experienced almost every dental thing mentioned in this thread: Broken teeth (w/ bonus infection), root canals, replacement of Classic 80s Metal Fillings, deep cleanings that required anesthesia, and even the laser gum surgery.
My daily hygiene routine includes: Floss, Perio-Aid tool, Waterpik, and finish with a soft bristle tooth brushing and some mouth wash if I'm feeling nasty. Plus, I sleep with a Night Guard because my jaw-clenching is probably caused the gum issues (if you get a Night Guard, consider occasionally doing your own enzyme wash with a vinegar/water solution). The only common thing I have never had to do with my teeth is braces.
These days when I go in for routine teeth cleanings (4x a year - two of them I have to cover out-of-pocket), it takes them like 10-15 minutes to do them (they still cost the same as one that would take 45 minutes, of course).
― beard papa, Thursday, 14 March 2024 18:25 (seven months ago) link
my man
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 14 March 2024 18:31 (seven months ago) link
I (mostly) gave up bubble water/seltzer because my dentist said she could see little divots in the enamel.. "But I don't drink Coke, only unsweetened seltzers!" No matter, she said, it's the carbolic acid
― Andy the Grasshopper, Thursday, 14 March 2024 18:52 (seven months ago) link
it's not too much of a burden to have both reading and distance glasses.
Been my route for the last few years. Works just fine for me!
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 14 March 2024 19:24 (seven months ago) link
Trayce, they didnt do a root canal before putting the crown on? I thought that was standard.
― Esteemed character actress (sunny successor), Friday, 29 March 2024 14:27 (seven months ago) link
I got the flu and then an old friend, a person of immense importance to the peer group that once was my whole social milieu, died -- he'd had cancer and preferred not to let people know, so it came as a shock -- most of us hadn't seen him in years, I saw him about ten years back just because my work takes me to various cities. He ran a coffee shop; it doesn't sound like much, but that coffee shop was the epicenter of social life for so many of us for a very long time -- many of us worked there, evenings often began there, as did days; it was a part of us for some time. That time passed long ago, but his death hurt us all so much -- we gathered on Facebook and just hurt together, off in various corners of our own worlds, mourning a time that passed so long ago, his death an occasion to mark the everyday loss of our earlier selves, of the greater thing we were then, which underwent the sort of slow fragmentation that's the natural end of scenes, of peer groups. I still have the flu, also the pollen in the air might/almost surely is making everything worse, but his death has me in crisis. He left our town at some point (long after I did) to return to Chicago, his original home, where his life continued and grew in many ways, and he was able to devote much of his time to a daughter he had late in life -- I have been doing the same work for 21 years, work that takes me away from home again and again, year in and year out. I'm very good at this work now...and I am plagued by the feeling that this is no way to live, that whatever my "self" is it takes a beating every time I hit the road and have to stitch it back together when I return, and that the internal cost of this process is too dear. "Is this who I am? Is this how I have chosen to live?" is perhaps the most ilxors-and-others-in-their-50s mood, of course, but I don't usually indulge any such thoughts, head down press forward make money, being parent to a disabled child makes that imperative more pressing for me, but in my sickness this week and in my grief I feel acutely that it is time for change for me.
― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Saturday, 30 March 2024 13:24 (seven months ago) link
^^^thank you for posting this; spouse and I are both in similar predicaments re: “is this who I am?” And very sorry for your loss. And the flu. Harder to cope when we physically feel like shit.
― mom tossed in kimchee (quincie), Saturday, 30 March 2024 14:41 (seven months ago) link
then i hope you find and can make satisfying change. or find a satisfying change of view, from which what you are doing feels more complete for you. and i’m very sorry for the loss of your friend.
― schrodingers cat was always cool (Hunt3r), Saturday, 30 March 2024 14:44 (seven months ago) link
sorry my post was xp. but yeah, peace to any ilxors feeling adrift, which def includes me.
― schrodingers cat was always cool (Hunt3r), Saturday, 30 March 2024 14:57 (seven months ago) link
Wishing you the best, JCLC, hope you are feeling better soon. The other stuff is a lot to deal with at the same time. Try to be kind to yourself and trust you will make the best decision you can when you are in a better place.
― il lavoro mi rovina la giornata (PBKR), Saturday, 30 March 2024 15:18 (seven months ago) link
A lot to say about this but I don't think any of it would be helpful.
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Saturday, 30 March 2024 15:20 (seven months ago) link
Commiserating is helpful
― mom tossed in kimchee (quincie), Saturday, 30 March 2024 15:31 (seven months ago) link
honestly anybody reading my thoughts has helped me today, I don't share much of this stuff but here among people with whom I've shared discussions for so long I feel free to unburden myself a little and it helps.
― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Saturday, 30 March 2024 16:00 (seven months ago) link
I'm very sorry for your loss, and really can identify with what you wrote. I am often struck by the loss of the feeling I had even 10-15 years ago, that anything was possible. This is definitely a time of narrowing options--but not no options at all. So I hope you can find something that gives you more peace.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Saturday, 30 March 2024 16:47 (seven months ago) link
update on my health: it was pneumonia & bronchitis. I'm now on a big ol cocktail of meds and just now took pleasure in eating for the first time in a week. I am mad as hell because I'm trying so hard to get back up to my long runs, running is important to me and I've been on a 2-year-plus injury jag but JUST this month I finally seemed to have turned a corner, ran 5k three times week before last....and then last week I was knocked down by illness and I know that recovering from pneumonia is yet another fuckin "take it easy on yourself" situation but there's only so easy I can take it, I'm back to work on Friday and my job involved two hours a night of being pretty energetic. main feeling right now is gratitude for the visit and feeling pleased with myself for resolving "just get your ass to the clinic as soon as you wake up" because I was in "I can't live like this, can I?" territory, it's still bad but the drugs are working.
― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Sunday, 31 March 2024 22:18 (seven months ago) link
attention bronchitis & pneumonia: 🖕
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Sunday, 31 March 2024 22:22 (seven months ago) link
I am very much in a "is this gonna be my forever life?" place as well. Part of it's frustration with my publisher, who has not responded for a couple of weeks now to my emails about my upcoming book, but another part of it is getting itchy with the endless treadmill of writing about music generally. I'm starting to think more seriously than I have in years about Writing About Something Else For A Change. Sending three poems to a local literary magazine (no response yet) helped a little, and looking at some fiction projects with an eye toward self-publishing them is helping, too, because putting three older books out there will push me to finish a fourth that's fully plotted but only about 1/4 written. If my current "full-time" job lurches toward greater stability (which it might, soon), I will be in a position to make some decisions.
― Tahuti Watches L&O:SVU Reruns Without His Ape (unperson), Sunday, 31 March 2024 22:39 (seven months ago) link
get well soon jclc.
running will come back soon enough. were you the person who recommended "what i talk about when i talk about running" on ilx? seems like you probly coulda.
― schrodingers cat was always cool (Hunt3r), Monday, 1 April 2024 01:54 (six months ago) link
possibly? as I am of the age to be on this thread, I do tend to forget a buncha stuff
― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Monday, 1 April 2024 01:59 (six months ago) link
How do you do, fellow 50 year olds?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMbxOUgPDsI
― you gotta roll with the pączki to get to what's real (snoball), Saturday, 4 May 2024 07:58 (five months ago) link
whatsuuuuuuuppppp … <coughs weakly>
― assert (matttkkkk), Saturday, 4 May 2024 08:07 (five months ago) link
I never saw this before - they did say it was a better option, because its possible the tooth can still go south esp if I dont look after it. I dunno how that will pan out now - the tooth next to it just got pulled out completely lol. 3 days later and I still feel kinda run down and sore from it. There's another shitty thing about this age - everythign is so much bloody harder to recover from.
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Saturday, 4 May 2024 11:07 (five months ago) link
welcome, snoball! your orthopedic shoes will be arriving in time for your 4pm dinner reservation
― il lavoro mi rovina la giornata (PBKR), Saturday, 4 May 2024 12:48 (five months ago) link
Ugh tooth problems are the worst. Sorry your going through that, Trayce.
― Esteemed character actress (sunny successor), Sunday, 5 May 2024 01:31 (five months ago) link
Thanks Sunny x I'm starting to feel better now. I really shouldnt have got drunk only 2 days after the extraction, ha ha. :(
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Monday, 6 May 2024 01:06 (five months ago) link
― beard papa, Thursday, March 14, 2024 6:25 PM (one month ago)
Fellow clencher and night-guard evangelist here. Absolutely recognise all of this, including the massive Eighties fillings now getting replaced because the teeth around them are finally splitting and splintering to pieces. I need to get a new night guard now because mine has split at the back. Before I do that, though, I need to get a THIRD root canal treatment and a crown which, I've been warned, might end up being useless because the tooth might be too far gone to support it for more than a few years.
Like you, I'm now meticulous about my dental hygiene and madly envious of people who don't have to be. We had friends over for a late night on Saturday night (dinner and Rummikub, because that's where we are now) and I spent most of Sunday watching films on the sofa with my night guard in, just in case I dozed off. That's how I broke a chunk off a tooth at Christmas, after all.
― trishyb, Monday, 6 May 2024 13:21 (five months ago) link
Did my annual physical last week and enjoyed this summary from the follow-up narrative from my doc: "well developed; well nourished; thin build; well groomed; no apparent distress" — I mean, for 54 I'm declaring victory. (Still waiting on cholesterol #s tho.)
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, 7 May 2024 20:37 (five months ago) link
(My wife says it sounds like a listing for animal adoptions at the local shelter)
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, 7 May 2024 20:39 (five months ago) link
Healthy coat
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Tuesday, 7 May 2024 20:40 (five months ago) link
Everything being said about dental routines and suffering is painfully OTM.
(I lost my mouth guard, in my own damn house, a month or two ago. No idea where it could be. So far my jaw has been OK somehow.)
― Marten Broadcloak, mild-mannered GOP congressman (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, 7 May 2024 20:43 (five months ago) link
(I'm with a large Northern California-based HMO group and they don't seem to do annual physicals anymore, I wonder if I should request one.. think my last blood work was maybe 2021?)
I have a few late 40's/early 50's buddies that totally are afraid to go to the dentist, even if they have insurance.. I'm like 'Just fucking go, get it over with, things won't magically get better'
I actually take pleasure in the misery of a dental visit, I didn't have any sort of insurance in my 20's which is precisely when we should all have universal dental insurance.. our bodies were healthy but our teeth were fucked
― Andy the Grasshopper, Tuesday, 7 May 2024 20:49 (five months ago) link
I let my dental health lapse twice and paid for it in money and pain. Never ever again.
― Marten Broadcloak, mild-mannered GOP congressman (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, 7 May 2024 20:53 (five months ago) link
Or: Andy OTM
I like getting the annual physical, not least because in good years it's the only time I see my doctor and I like her to remember who I am. And I like the labs and screens, just making sure everything looks OK. I even agreed to a separate preventive screening my doc recommended — a "coronary calcium score" — to check for arterial plaque buildup. Not covered by insurance, it's like $125 and I'm sure she gets a cut for the referral, but what the hell. I like to know what's going on in there.
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, 7 May 2024 21:07 (five months ago) link
I go to my doctor about four times a year but haven't been to the dentist in decades. Sometimes I worry about it but then I say fuck it.
― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson), Tuesday, 7 May 2024 21:24 (five months ago) link
I have been blessed with (mostly) good teeth, which aiu is party genetic and also breastfeeding can help? thanks mom!
still had a litany of horrors starting with braces, and I am missing a back molar currently cuz I cannot afford a $4K implant.
dental care is imho the starkest example of class differences in the US
― I painted my teeth (sleeve), Tuesday, 7 May 2024 21:28 (five months ago) link
really that should read:
"dental care/insurance is imho the starkest example of class differences in the US"
― I painted my teeth (sleeve), Tuesday, 7 May 2024 21:29 (five months ago) link
yeah, it's always baffling to me that the teeth were medically separated from the rest of the body many years ago: their own offices, their own insurance systems, etc. Like what if we had to get podiatry insurance, or spleen insurance?
― Andy the Grasshopper, Tuesday, 7 May 2024 21:33 (five months ago) link
Dentistry wasn't considered a medical field until the late 19th century.
― Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo, Tuesday, 7 May 2024 21:47 (five months ago) link
They're luxury bones. Only the rich and lucky are allowed to have them; if your teeth are in bad shape the assumption is that it's your own damn fault for not taking better care of them
Toothpaste is bone soap.
― Millennium Falco (Ye Mad Puffin), Tuesday, 7 May 2024 22:31 (five months ago) link
The fact that none of these manly-man grooming companies has yet put out a line of toothpaste called Bone Soap (or advertised toothpaste with "Polish Your Bones") is baffling to me.
― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson), Tuesday, 7 May 2024 22:35 (five months ago) link