I have mentioned previously that I have been referred to Dr. P, a local world-renowned TMJ specialist and oral surgeon. Well, as part of that referral process, he requires that you visit Canaray, a private clinic that specializes only in Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology.
I visited the clinic on Friday last week (today is Wednesday, the day of my consultation with Dr. P!) and they indicated that it usually takes ~2 weeks for the report to be completed. When asked to do it by today for my visit with Dr. P, they accommodated me without any pushback. Granted, this was requested FOR me by Dr. T, but they did it no questions asked.
Outside of my visit to the office, which was fast, pleasant, and efficient, the quality of their work is outstanding, in my humble opinion. Yesterday I was in Dr. T's office to have impressions taken in order to prepare a 'flipper' for me by Friday when my 2 teeth were to be extracted and bone grafts done. I was terrified, since the impression material could have pulled out one or both of my teeth prematurely. Well, Dr. T's associate, Dr.....T (ok, let's call him Dr. T2) was there and was interested in seeing my report. I logged into the Canaray website (they give you a code so you can view your own scans) and tried to find it for him. The images were up, in fact they had been there since the weekend. The report was not to be found, however. So we got ready to get the impressions done.
In the meantime, I checked the website again, and lo and behold...the report was up! A full, 7-page report, complete with multiple images from the scan and findings based on those images. It is impressive. Well...looking at the report we found out that the tooth 14 that we were sure was vertically fractured and completely unsalvageable was only fractured in the crown!! A whole chunk of it was fractured off, but since it went down into my gum, it hadn't come loose (lord knows how it's stayed put for 3 months). But it was squeezing the root of my tooth every time it moved. I know....I can tell you. Every. Damn. Time. The pain was unbelievable. Just a slight knock to the tooth and I was in tears. I can't seem to get the photos to copy here (I'll keep trying) but simply removing the broken piece, doing a root canal and then crowning the tooth is all it took to get me out of pain. And I get to keep my tooth!! Wonderful!
The rest of the report lays out my injuries in gory detail. (Well, it's not that gory). I will try to get the photos to copy into here so I can show you.
My words of advice after this experience are to advocate for a trip to Canaray for a full cone CT scan and report on your injuries. It shows so much more than any x-ray can, and informs your doctors of what's really happening in your mouth/head. It already saved me losing a tooth, having a bone graft and then an implant....anywhere from $5000-7000 worth of work, and the scan plus report cost $295. Even if it weren't covered by insurance, it would be worth it!!
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