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Comment by cmrdporcupine | Hacker News Reader

Another profession and service distorted by the insurance economy.

Can't go in there without them trying to tell me to put a chunk of plastic in my mouth to stop the grinding. (As described in TFA).

Described as a diagnostic by them, a problem we discovered in you, mr porcupine... But strangely recommended to every other single person I've talked to. Very scientific.

Paid for by insurance of course.

I did this once years ago and the mouth guard was both annoying and disgusting. Never again.

Everything is priced exactly the maximum that your insurance provider will pay.

When I was (and am) contracting and didn't have insurance anymore... the plastic-pushing stopped, remarkably.

Regular cleaning and fillings are important. But so much of their business seems to have degraded into orthotics for the face.

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> put a chunk of plastic in my mouth to stop the grinding.

I have paid for two of these custom made guards. By far, have both been worth every single cent. I sleep so much better and have already reduced wear on tear on my teeth. I cannot sleep without my guard.

> Another profession and service distorted by the insurance economy.

Hit and miss. Dentists are an example of a non-insurance area in the US.

Regular health insurance doesn't cover dental procedures, and all dental insurances have a _maximum_ payout of around $1k a year. Not out-of-pocket maximum like regular health insurance, but a maximum value that _they_ pay out.

Moldable sport mouthguards are cheap and can work to prevent grinding. You can cut them down to size.

Often much more uncomfortable since they are much thicker, no?

I tried all kinds of cheap options before shelling out the big bucks for a custom made guard. It's a night and day difference. The custom guards are ridiculously priced, but I cannot go back to OTC guards after having one.

There are much cheaper options you can do at home instead of relying on a dentist to overprice it. See my comment elsewhere.

The ones you are recommending in your comment history were not much cheaper than my custom, 3-D printed one from my dentist. Impression molded guards have nothing on what I ended up getting. I wish I knew the name of the device that was used to make it.

Word of warning, I did one of these about 3 years ago, and it left me in a tremendous deal of pain and a journey that reminded me heavily of OPs post.

After years I am finally doing mostly better, but would not wish that on anyone. Unfortunately I'm not an expert and can't tell you what is better, but there are few decisions I regret more than doing a cheap over the counter nightguard.

Wow, thank you for the warning!

Any chance you could give me detail on what went wrong?

Once you use something like [1] where they make a custom one you'll never want to use the supermarket variety again. I would grind my way through the supermarket kind every 2-3 months but this one has held up really well and it cleans easily with denture cleaning solutions.

[1] https://sweetguards.com/

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