Useless Conversation

[WayAbvPar]

I wish my dentist was that tech-y. I got a crown yesterday the old fashioned way.

[Engels]

This really is a thing and it makes me want to shop around for a more tech savvy dentist. Mine still hasn't even gone digital on xrays and its not a small operation at all. Its a downtown practice that serves thousands tied to one of the city's biggest health care providers ( Group Health for those of you in Seattle ).

[Rasix]

I love my newish (2 years now) dentist. Only problem is they keep trying to get me to use a mouth guard. Not going to happen, I have a hard enough time sleeping without some gross pseudo-retainer in my mouth. I would ditch the thing the second it became inconvenient. At least they accept that as an excuse and move on.

Really fair billing, don't wait forever for your appointments, and it seems like a pretty modern and effective shop. Wish they were closer (it's out by my old house), but I can deal with it on a twice yearly basis.

[Yegolev]

I'm trying to find a dental hygienist that will rub her tits on me while she works.

[01101010]

I'm trying to find a dental hygienist that will rub her tits on me while she works.

Now there is a GoFundMe project with potential.

[Sky]

I'm trying to find a dental hygienist that will rub her tits on me while she works.

Also my metric for finding a hair stylist.

[Merusk]

I'm trying to find a dental hygienist that will rub her tits on me while she works.

Wait, they don't all do that?  I've had 3 hygienists in the last 10 years. All of them regularly have had their breasts rubbing my shoulders or damn near my face on occasion. Maybe it's just because they were all under 5'5".

[Engels]

My latest hygienist had a case of IBS throughout the entire cleaning. Ya, I will be politely requesting someone else next time.

[WayAbvPar]

I'm trying to find a dental hygienist that will rub her tits on me while she works.

Heh. One of the reasons I chose my new dentist (other than she is local and young enough I won't have to switch for a while) is that she is cute-ish  . I was adamant about finding a female dentist this time around because I wanted someone with smaller hands. I had one dentist who had giant paws and it wasn't so much fun.

[Yegolev]

Somehow hairstylists are easier to find.  Another tough one is a chiropractor.  I found one but I had to keep my eyes closed.

[apocrypha]

Wait, you go to a chiropractor? Why? It's made up hippy bullshit.

[schild]

Wait, you go to a chiropractor? Why? It's made up hippy bullshit.

It's the only made up hippy bullshit that feels good immediately. The placebo effect is strong with that particular faux doctor.

[NowhereMan]

Yes but just get a good sports massage. Just as effective and likely less expensive and they will be much less inclined to try and do interesting things in the name of curing your IBS or influenza.

Might sound unduly harsh but I've been having fun family arguments about various fake medical practitioners recently and have got a bee in my bonnet currently.

[01101010]

Yes but just get a good sports massage. Just as effective and likely less expensive and they will be much less inclined to try and do interesting things in the name of curing your IBS or influenza.

Might sound unduly harsh but I've been having fun family arguments about various fake medical practitioners recently and have got a bee in my bonnet currently.

Strange, if I go to my sports med doctor, I get a $60 copay for the eval and any massages but my chiropractor is only $25 copay. YMMV I guess.

[apocrypha]

It's the only made up hippy bullshit that feels good immediately. The placebo effect is strong with that particular faux doctor.

Well as long as you're OK with being charged for placebo effect and ignore anything they actually tell you, whatever.

[Paelos]

I like my sports PT better than the chiropractor I had before. Because the former actually cured my muscle problem whereas the latter just moved me around a bunch.

[Mandella]

It's the only made up hippy bullshit that feels good immediately. The placebo effect is strong with that particular faux doctor.

Well as long as you're OK with being charged for placebo effect and ignore anything they actually tell you, whatever.

Okay, I'm going to dive into this. Cover me!

Maybe it has a lot to do with where you live, but my experience with local chiropractors is just the opposite of "made up hippy bullshit." In fact, every one I've gone to has given me the up front lecture that, "No matter what you might have heard, we don't cure cancer or work miracles, and if you have any severe physical issues I'm going to refer you to a specialist."

So what does that leave? Well, cheap physical therapy/sports massage. And I don't think the positive effects of aligning the spine and hip is particularly placeboish either. For one example, I used to think I just had bad knees. My chiropractor showed me that I, basically, walked like a duck (one foot tends to point outward -- heck I knew that but so what right?). He not only worked on that at the office, but gave me exercises to do at home to straighten out my gait. A few months later, I could do painless deep knee bends. How is that any more the placebo effect than any other therapeutic exercise?

Not one word about chakras or spinal energy or other horseshit. "Your posture is horrible -- you'll feel a lot better if we fix that" doesn't seem too outlandish to me, even if I didn't listen when my mom said the same thing...

[schild]

Lots of insurance covers Chiropractors to some degree (well good insurance). Masseuse, however, they do not.

[Bunk]

Huh, mine does up here.

[01101010]

Mine covers masseuse but not for the $25 that the chiropractor does. 

[Strazos]

I've had insurance that covers massage before.

[apocrypha]

Okay, I'm going to dive into this. Cover me!

Maybe it has a lot to do with where you live, but my experience with local chiropractors is just the opposite of "made up hippy bullshit." In fact, every one I've gone to has given me the up front lecture that, "No matter what you might have heard, we don't cure cancer or work miracles, and if you have any severe physical issues I'm going to refer you to a specialist."

So what does that leave? Well, cheap physical therapy/sports massage. And I don't think the positive effects of aligning the spine and hip is particularly placeboish either. For one example, I used to think I just had bad knees. My chiropractor showed me that I, basically, walked like a duck (one foot tends to point outward -- heck I knew that but so what right?). He not only worked on that at the office, but gave me exercises to do at home to straighten out my gait. A few months later, I could do painless deep knee bends. How is that any more the placebo effect than any other therapeutic exercise?

Not one word about chakras or spinal energy or other horseshit. "Your posture is horrible -- you'll feel a lot better if we fix that" doesn't seem too outlandish to me, even if I didn't listen when my mom said the same thing...

Time was when I'd've been happy to launch into a detailed explanation of the fraud that is chiropractice and why you shouldn't give those charlatans a penny. But if you want to give money (even if it's insurers money - where do you think that comes from anyway?) to practitioners of alternative medicine then I couldn't care less. You believe whatever you want to believe, the placebo effect is a real effect anyway.

But, do you know what you call alternative medicine that's proven to work better than placebo? Medicine.

[Nebu]

I like my sports PT better than the chiropractor I had before. Because the former actually cured my muscle problem whereas the latter just moved me around a bunch.

Please don't get me started on chiropractors... the rant could last for days.

Glad you found someone that is helping!

[NowhereMan]

Not one word about chakras or spinal energy or other horseshit. "Your posture is horrible -- you'll feel a lot better if we fix that" doesn't seem too outlandish to me, even if I didn't listen when my mom said the same thing...

The issue with 'spinal realignment' is that it basically comes down to 'your posture looks bad'. There isn't actually a 'proper alignment' that they can say your spine deviates from or even a set of standards for how different vertebrae should relate to one another. That is any 'diagnosis' of misalignment comes down to the guy in the chair deciding that this doesn't look right and trying to move things around. This doesn't mean the person you're talking to won't have any beneficial advice but you have no way of evaluating whether it's beneficial or whether the person is a complete incompetent without actually following it and spending time working with them. There is no objective criteria for them to work with and no theory or understanding behind what they do. The absolute best you can hope for is a physical therapist without the same level of understanding of what they're doing as an actual physical therapist. The Simpsons episode with the spinal readjustment rubbish bin was a fairly good assessment of chiropracty: You are paying some guy for doing stuff to your back that they may or may not have seen to help other people with similar problems. They have no real idea how it does this and so won't have any idea what to do if it doesn't help and may not be able to judge if it will actually make the issue worse.

Bear in mind none of these criticisms equate to: nobody has ever felt better after visiting a chiropractor. I'd argue it's not even that no chiropractor has ever given good advice but just that there's literally zero understanding behind their advice. Plenty of people have gone to homeopathic doctors and gotten sensible nutritional advice along with their expensive water and felt much better afterwards, that in no way validates the practice of homeopathy. I will say if you've got a 'chiropractor' who is basically an unlicensed physical therapist and actually know what they're doing and it's cheaper for you to go to them then I guess carry on. Just please don't take their talk of misaligned vertebrae as something actually meaningful.

[Yegolev]

The chiro visit was $40 and was pretty great for immediately relaxing my obscenely tight muscles due to uncontrolled stress.  There are a couple types of massage beds which are the real reason to go there, then the lady will rub your tight spots and then wallow on you and crack your spine.  When it got really bad, the have this neat machine that basically shocks your muscles into relaxing.  That is absolutely not something to use if you aren't sporting rock-hard stress-muscles, but if you are so tense that you are very literally crushing your discs with your own neck muscles then it's a great option.

If I had a "real" medical problem then I'd see a "real" physical therapist.  I know a ortho surgeon and once I mentioned that my knees sound like a old man eating celery and he said he could shoot me up with some stuff for it.  So, if that's what you call real medicine then I have that option as well.

[Khaldun]

Well, I finally went back to a dentist--I had some absolutely terrible experiences some years ago, including a guy who kept trying to put fillings in all my teeth, claiming I had "incipient cavities", another who ripped my gum with a careless move, and a dude who was just a scary freak. But the one and only filling I actually have cracked recently, so I figured I just had to do it. I was thinking they were going to find cavities everywhere and gum disease and yell at me. They were very relaxed, the equipment and setting was way cleaner and more professional than at any dentist I'd ever been to before, they did a smooth professional job on the cracked tooth--temporary crown, then permanent one two weeks later, pretty affordable with my co-pay. No cavities (I think they were pretty surprised by that) and gums not too awful. Tooth cleaning was a bit more work than normal for them I think but not too much so. So that was a big relief.

[Soln]

What kills me are shitty hygienists who still have to use metal tools from the Civil War to scrape your teeth.  I literally have known only 1 good, non hurty hygienist my whole life and when she left a twerp's practice, my wife and I also left. 

[Khaldun]

Yeah, the people in this place don't use the metal tools any more. I felt like a caveman who had suddenly stepped into the 21st Century--it was a great relief.

[calapine]

This makes me happy for some reason 

[rattran]

This morning, the duck ate a mouse that was stealing corn from his bowl. Almost got a second one too.

Little bastard is a better mouser than the cats.

[Druzil]

I love my newish (2 years now) dentist. Only problem is they keep trying to get me to use a mouth guard. Not going to happen, I have a hard enough time sleeping without some gross pseudo-retainer in my mouth. I would ditch the thing the second it became inconvenient. At least they accept that as an excuse and move on.

I had to start using a mouth guard a few years ago.  It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be, though I don't have any sleeping problems.  It did help out with the mysterious headaches I was having from apparently grinding away my teeth while I slept.  I do have the issue though where I have to actively make myself use it.  If I forget even one night then I basically don't wear it for a week until I make myself start using it again.

[Sky]

No metal tools for cleaning? What's this about? I need to make some suggestions to my DDS.

The last hygienist was phenomenal (despite metal tools, I guess), the new one is just ok. Younger and lazier. The doc himself is amazing, which is why I stay. Otherwise I'd drive the hour to the office the old hygienist went to.

[Khaldun]

They *briefly* used a metal pick, actually. But it was really brief--most of the work was with other less scary instruments, both in the cleaning and in putting the crown on.

[calapine]

The difference between PR, marketing, advertising and branding:

[Sky]

I'd be happy if UPS could fucking stop delivering my stuff to my wacky neighbors and telling me it was delivered to the correct address when I call to bitch about it.

Last week I got lucky and they weren't home, so I was able to retrieve my Ralph McQuarrie book set (you should really get it, it's amazing). Today I got lucky because the older two were out and the niece who is actual civil brought it over for me.

We'll see what happens tomorrow. I mean, the houses are clearly numbered and we're both regular UPS customers.