In the course of my life, I’ve spent well over $250,000 on dental expense: “normal dental care”, root canals, extractions, oral surgeries, implants…and here at the end, I have ONE mostly intact tooth, no upper teeth at all (pulled to prepare for dentures when the Bush mortgage meltdown ate everything)…but no dentures, due to having lost everything…including the ability to keep up with the payments on the dentures before I even had ‘em.
I *do* have two beautiful sets of lower-molar implants (L & R) though, bloody upper gums, and a LOT of practice @ making real food I can process with what I have left.
I’ve also been practically *certified* in every form of tooth care and cleaning, including flossing…which do NO good if your stress and anxiety cause you to clench and grind your teeth…and that is what happened to mine (along with plain old shoddy dental work).
Even after all that, I deal with toothaches *every* day…just in case my previous comment sounded somehow “privileged” or elitist. Dental infections / lack of dental care *KILLS PEOPLE*…and almost killed me.