The Elderly Always Get the Shaft

As you know from my first essay, Mama lives in rural South Carolina. I make sure that she has regular doctor’s visits in Charlotte with a practice that she has been going to for a long time. Until recently, she has not had any dental problems. She hasn’t been to a dentist in a few years, but her doctor has been checking her mouth and gums routinely to see if she has any problems.

About two months ago, she lost one of her wisdom teeth. She said that just “out of the blue” the tooth got loose and came out within a couple of weeks. This really worried both of us. Mama has never lost a permanent tooth, and she is very good about brushing and flossing so for this to happen is unusual.

I started calling around to see if I could set up a dental appointment for her only to find out that Medicare does not cover routine dental visits. I decided to make her an appointment with my dentist and to pay out-of-pocket for it. She went week before last and most everything in her mouth looked good. However, she did have another loose tooth and an abscess in another wisdom tooth which was not bothering her at all. The dentist said that aging brings about tooth loss and recommended that she have both teeth extracted so he arranged for an appointment with a dental surgeon.

The hardest part of all this for me was not realizing how apprehensive Mama had gotten over this. Since she had never had a tooth pulled, she was very emotional. But in the end all went well, except for the pain of the long needle putting the anesthesia in her gums. She has recovered from this just fine, and she is scheduled for a tooth cleaning in early May.

Back to the issue of no dental coverage for an 86-year-old who does not have the money to go to the dentist. Since dental health is an important part of overall health, I am struggling with this lack of coverage and struggling with the fact that if I could not help Mama with this $650 expense, she would probably have had severe problems from these bad teeth.

I am going to research this further so I may report back on this so that we will all have the facts when and if we need to help an elderly person with a situation like this.