Dr. TJ Bolt

I had to take care of a patient the other night very late.  He had a tooth ache.  When I examined him he had not one but two very badly decayed teeth that had gone into the nerve.  He could feel his heart beating in his jaw.  After helping him he made mention to the fact that he couldn’t go to the dentist because he did not have any dental insurance.  I thought to myself, how far we have come as a society to be led to believe that we can’t afford dental care, unless we have help. This could not be further from the truth.  He could afford purchasing cigarettes that will lead to possible eventual tooth loss, heart disease, and lung cancer.  He said he smoked a pack of cigarettes per day.  He did not have insurance to pay for something that may kill him, yet he purchased them.  Added up for a whole year I am sure that he would at least have enough for two yearly exams learning how to control his own health and break out of this disease cycle.  He would have enough information to find out how much things would cost so that he could work that into his budget.

Life is all about choices and fortunately in the United States, most people can afford anything that they want, not just everything they want.  So would this person value health and want to make changes to make his future more assured?  He worked in a restaurant and drank soda pop all day long.  The interesting thing will be whether he want to curb his harmful habit to save his teeth.  Dental disease in the form of tooth decay is self induced.  It is a shame but because of the way that he thought and maybe even was conditioned to think, he now has to make a decision to save the teeth or lose them.  Losing them will be a short term fix at best.  If he decides that it is less expensive right now to have them removed, he will be robbing Peter to pay Paul.  Later these teeth will be missed, his bite will be thrown off and possibly lose more teeth in the future.  He may even be faced with joint problems and headaches as a result of this loss.

PREVENTION IS THE KEY.  Learn to take control of your own health.  Dental insurance usually pays for very little anyway over a year’s time.  Don’t be misled into thinking that you can’t afford dental care because you are not.insured.  There are many ways to make dental care affordable and the best way is prevention.  The other way is planning and phasing treatment.  Allow a dentist and his team to coach you to health.  Learn what the key strategies are to take control of your own health so that you never have to worry whether you have dental insurance or not, because you won’t need any dental treatment.  I have been teaching these proven strategies since 1996 and we keep objective data  on every patient and can  prove that prevention is the most cost effective thing that there is.  It wins out over disease care every day hands down.  BREAK OUT OF THE DISEASE CYCLE.  If you have any questions please call me at 402-572-8000 or see my website @ www.drtjbolt.com