Our 2025 will forever be known as "The year of the denture". When my girlfriend's bridge work broke in late 2024, her last option was to get an upper denture. Little did we know how this would impact our year and life going forward. It was her first year under Medicare and I managed to find a Medicare advantage plan that included dental. But we soon found out that none of the Medicare dental plans include implants. So, she decided to go with a local dentist to have her upper denture made. First, she needed to have nine teeth removed. This was done in two sessions, which began in March. You hear advertisements for same day dentures, but the preferred option is to allow time for the gums to heal so that the denture will fit better.
The teeth extractions were painful enough, what came next was a 6 month wait for her gums to heal properly. During that time, she was unable to eat solid food. This required modifications to our grocery shopping. She was also unable to eat out or spend any time out in public after having half of her teeth removed. Her diet consisted mainly of soup, oatmeal, pudding, and soft fruit. We couldn't have the same meals because I was the only one with teeth. Although, my teeth have several crowns and are overdue for maintenance. At first, the cost estimate was close to $3000, which I expected would be half our responsibility. We arranged to make payments at the first couple appointments. But after that, there was a long delay while they tried to determine exactly how much of the bill Medicare was going to cover.
I think it was to the dentist's advantage to stretch out the process over many visits, so that they could get ample reimbursement. In the end we only paid $300 and Medicare covered the rest. That was about the only thing that made the ordeal less traumatic. When it came time to get the denture fitted, they discovered that something must have gone wrong with the mold and the fit was wrong. A few weeks later they had another denture made and ready to fit. Next, she had to learn how to eat with false uppers. She tried all of the popular adhesives (Fixodent, Seabond, Poligrip). She finally settled on Super Poligrip. It still isn't ideal, because the stronger the adhesive the harder it is to clean off. There are going to be things that she will have to avoid eating and we still haven't gone to a restaurant. It will take time to adjust to this new routine and get confident enough to bite into something without having her denture come loose.
Hopefully she will get used to the denture like most older people seem too. I guess now with her upper teeth removed, someday she could get snap on dentures, so she wouldn't have to deal with the adhesive. It wasn't as bad as when she had her knee replaced a few years ago. That was another year of pain and suffering. Now, you wouldn't even know she had knee replacement surgery unless you saw the scar on her knee. But I think I heard her say once that she wouldn't get the other knee done after that experience. It's no fun getting old. In 2026 Medicare is going from $185 to $202.90 per month. That's an extra $214.80 per year or an annual cost of $2434.80. She is due to start social security soon, but we don't know what her monthly benefit will be. It's complicated because her benefit will be based on how much her ex-husband is getting. One thing we do know is that Medicare will be taking a big piece of it.
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