What is it about getting over the age of 40 that suddenly you have to work harder at keeping everything going smoothly? Honestly 40 is not that old and yet at 45. Hubby and I are finding old war wounds starting to ache.

For me, its my bad left leg, the list is way to long, broken bones, cow kicked, fallen though a rotten floor to dangle and a flip off a quad and land on a tree stump. That left leg of mine shows off many a foolish or “WTH just happened moment” of my younger years.  That knee is the worst part of it.. at times it just decides.. no you can’t get down, or no you can’t get back up.. or what do you mean you want me to hold weight.. it just says no..

For my Dear Hubby, its his knees.. As a Geologist that worked in the far north for many season’s, its walking 20 plus km with a backpack of rock samples over rough artic tundra that gives him that knee pain.

However todays post is about dental.. Now I am going to own up to the fact that both hubby and I don’t have the best line up teeth wise gene wise and so we have dealt with different issues over the years..  We are very lucky to have coverage up to a point.  While Canada does have a health care plan. It does not have a basic Dental coverage plan. So when it comes to Dental, you pay out of pocket.

If you are lucky enough to have some form of insurance, you get a percent of what you pay out of pocket back.. Some things are covered nicely at 90 percent, other things much less and many other things have caps on them.. example if you need a screw in tooth, cost will be about 3500 and the average insurance cap (per the info from our dentist is between 1000 and 1500). That’s not even a 50% coverage.

Way back in the day, you paid the difference and the companies billed the insurance and that was that, but over the last number of years so many of the services have flipped it.. now we pay full price, get our paperwork and then have to send it in.. I get it.. they have found a way to pass on having more staff doing this work and given it back to the client to make it happen.

What it means for us though is that we must always upfront the total cost out and then wait.. better for them.. not as nice for us. I have had friends talk about the fact that while they have the coverage, they have to save for months to get the upfront cost raised before being able to do things.

Anyway.. Hubby had a tooth issue very early this week and we got him in and seen late weds, tooth needed to be pulled.. so I have a hubby that is on soft food only with a big old sore spot in his mouth at the moment.  So far the blood clot has formed nicely and we will take it one day at a time.

While they say the first 72 is the most important, it should take two weeks to heal up the first cover over but it takes 8 MONTHS to fully and properly grow back that bone covering in that hole. That means watching and tracking the diet a bit more on makings sure he’s needs are meet to grow new bone.

Given our normal diet, its not to make tweeks but still I will need to make more bone broths and ideally more gells to support that healing process.

What about you? Does your country cover any basic dental? Do you have to have insurance? or is it a pay as you go?