I went to the prosthodontist yesterday and received the skinny on the mouthpiece. The mouthpiece is made from a mold of the patient’s mouth, then sent to a technician who builds it to fit. The appliance looks exactly like the picture on the Wikipedia page, with two little piston-looking things holding the jaw slightly forward. The dentist says it extends the jaw to 2/3rds its maximum.
She also examined my mouth and declared that I was growing new bone! She asked if I grinded or clenched my teeth and when I reported that, yes, I’d noticed myself doing that, she said that that can stimulate new bone growth in the jaw.
“If ever you need new bone for anything,” she joked, “you’ve got it right there!”
Part of her exam included poking my jaw muscles behind my molars. For someone who clenches his mouth, these muscles will be painfully sore. Fortunately for me my muscles were fine, as were my teeth.
Everything looked great until she mentioned the price of the appliance, at which point I definitely needed something to keep my jaw from dropping: $1,125! That’s a lot of money for something so easily crushable, especially since the dentist doesn’t do the insurance filing. While I might get my insurance to cover part of the cost, I wonder if it would pay for all of it. Should I not like it or it doesn’t fix the problem, I don’t want to buy a $1100 paperweight. On the other hand, what’s the cost of constantly not sleeping well?
I left with the documents and codes needed to follow up with insurance and headed back to work. Once I got home, I was pleased to see my $30 mouthpiece had arrived in the mail. After about 30 minutes of fitting, I could get it ready to tackle the problem. If it works, I may decide to upgrade to the Cadillac model. Right now I’m not ready to bite that off, so to speak.