#Occupy Kingston Fights Back with the BEST DENTIST EVER!

I might be living on the Wall Street in Kingston, New York; but for over 30 days now my heart has been on the OTHER Wall Street in NY. It’s firmly there, occupying, protesting and standing up for being one of the 99%. People say that the protests make no sense. People say that the list of demands is confusing and too all encompassing. I say that’s because OMG: there is just too much already! I am so proud of people getting up, getting out, and making noise!

• I already know the ropes of being young pregnant scared vulnerable and being exploited by the adoption industry.
• I already dealt with what happens when you have a greedy employer who abuses, blackballs, breaks the law and then demands that YOU pay them back! I know that there is no justice in the courts and no presumed innocent unless you have the money to pay the lawyers’ fees.
• I already lived through what happens when you work full time, at a small business that doesn’t offer health insurance and you get hurt. We call that “the two years of living with a broken arm”.
• I know what one has to do to prove to the government that you actually need help and, DESERVE medical care.
• And I know, from many of my friends and family what dental insurance looks like if you are either the dying middle class, or as we really are, the working poor.

Dental Care the Way it Was for the Middle Class

My dentist growing up on Long Island was Dr. Steckle. His office was out of his house, half a block away from my grandmother’s house in Massapequa Park. My mom went to Dr. Steckle, as did my grandmother as did my great grandmother. When I moved to upstate NY, I would go home to my mom’s to get my teeth cleaned. Eventually, he brought in a partner. Eventually, he died. And I pretty much stopped going to the dentist.

I tired attaching to my first husband’s family dentist up here in the Hudson Valley. It was close. Good dentist, but he was retiring too. And then, right, no dental insurance. I bought my house in 1997. I have not had a teeth cleaning since probably 1996. Not particularly please about that, but I have good strong teeth. Big straight huge teeth with thousands of dollars of orthodontia work, and I brush well.
Other friends, my poor Rye, I have watched their dental issues over the years. This is what happens when you are the working poor or middle class who’s job has crappy or nonexistent or too expensive dental insurance.

Dental Care for the Uninsured in America: 99%

When your tooth starts hurting, you hope it’s nothing and pray it goes away.

When it doesn’t go away you start to take the Advil or Tylenol.

Then you start asking around for the friends who have extra Tylenol 3’s around when the pain starts kicking up a notch. Maybe if you are lucky, you score some Oxycoton, unless it’s me. I can’t take anything codeine/morphine based or I just vomit for hours and want to die.

When you realize that it, isn’t really going to stop hurting like you hope, and you accept that something’s getting all infected and maybe abscessing, you start asking around for leftover antibiotics. An unfinished bottle of Amoxicillin? Maybe some Doxycycline? Doesn’t matter. You patch them together and hope you have enough to kill whatever is rotten in your mouth before it grows into your brain.

But you know, it’s bad. There that’s smell. You can’t fix it, so you start to call the dentists. Notice I wrote dentistS, plural. Because without dental insurance, you probably don’t have a regular dentist. I know I didn’t. There will be no root canals, no bridge work, no real filling. At this point, you are looking for the cheapest way out.. who is going to yank that rotting tooth out of your face to stop the pain. Like the time Rye had to go in for a emergency Sunday AM tooth rip out that cost …$600. The rumors of the cheap guy in Port Ewen who would rip out teeth for like $300? No more. And of course the tooth starts to kill when, as the American working poor, living paycheck to paycheck, you need to do other stuff like pay rent or buy food.

Now even if you find the dentists that you can afford to rip out the rotten tooth, they won’t do it if you have an infection. So they tell you that you have to go to the doctor first.

That primary care physician that you don’t really have like we did as kids. Then, dad had one job ( NYPD) and the insurance was great ( Blue Cross Blue Shield pre HMO) and you could call Dr. Brown and say; “Hey call me in a script.” And he did.

How the Working Poor Are Forced to Care of Their Teeth

Now, if you are lucky enough to HAVE insurance, and PICK your own doctor, and they TAKE your insurance, there sure is NOT a relationship with them.

But you call because you feel like your face is falling off..and if it doesn’t fall off you might rip it off!

CRANKY LADY ON PHONE: Dr. Blarg’s office ( I made that name up ..if there IS a Dr. Blarg, then sorry..no offense!)
FACE FULL OF PAIN: Yes, I have a tooth infection and I need some antibiotics.
CRANKY LADY ON PHONE: The doctor will need to see you first. The next available appointment is in November 24th.

It’s August. You will DIE before November. Really. The tooth rot will enter your brain and it will be the beginning of the Zombie apocalypse. So you call another doctor. Rinse . Repeat. Sometimes you get the: “oh that’s a dental problem, you need to see a dentist”

Yeah. No doh!

The same game happens when you call the dentists, pretty much ALL the dentists in the local Hudson Valley area. I know, my friend Pine did it a few months ago.

• Dr. Dude is not taking any new patients now.
• Do you have insurance? Then no, he won’t see you.
• Are you a patient? The next available appointment for new patients is January 2020.
• We can’t work on anything until the infection is cleared. You need to see a doctor.

Soon, it does not matter that your tooth hurts because you have a full blown, flag on the play, unnecessary roughness helmet to helmet concussion from beating your head against the wall. (please note my football reference for my Rye!)

I have had friends go to the ER just to get the damn antibiotics, knowing that the $500 ER tab will be going to collections. And then, if they are lucky, they kill the bugs growing in the rotten tooth and hope it stays away. Of course, it never does, and eventually you have to go to the ReadyCare building and have that crazy dentist lady sit on your chest and painfully, horribly, rip out your tooth for $500 bucks. But hey, be all sacred of that evil Obama socialized health care! I guess the job creation here is that we are keeping the bill collectors employed???

My Dental Emergency: Broke Tooth

For years, I have watched the hell of rotting teeth. Rye’s ripped out one by one, other friends, shared my leftover antibotics..and then, about 6 months ago, my tooth broke.

Back molar, right before my wisdom tooth on the bottom left. A good half of it gone. But..it didn’t hurt!! So I brushed it extra well and hoped.

And then a bit more broke. And I learned to chew with my other side of my mouth.

And when a bit more broke, leaving that crazy sharp corner, I leaned to keep my tongue away ( or it got calloused!)

And then, about two weeks ago, it started feeling “funny”. I thought I was clenching too much at nigh due to stress. I tried to relax more. It keep on feeling funnier. But not ha ha funny. I ate less. I winced. And I worried that I was going to have to have that ready care crazy lady sit on my chest and rip it out. So I hoped, it would go away.

It didn’t.

On Monday, my tooth was giving me “issues”.
On Tuesday, when I sneezed and my upper and lower teeth touched at the office, I would cry out in pain.
On Wednesday, I stayed home. I was practically eating Oralgel, Advil and crying.
By Thursday my face was swollen, my lymph nodes in my neck were swelling and I was convinced that I would get a septic blood infection and die.
And then..on Friday Morning Rye called Dr. Thomas Cingel, DDS. And they said, “Bring her in. Can you be here by 10?”

Dr. Thomas Cingel, DDS of Kingston NY: Best Dentist EVA!

He is the BEST DENTIST IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD! At least in the Hudson Valley! Most certainly in Kingston!! Let me count the ways:

1. His office is cool. I have admired the architecture for quite some time.
2.  His staff is NICE and CARING..like they actually CARE caring! Like trying to be gentle when she had to take the xray caring.
3. They have a big huge teddy bear in the office that, yes, I hugged!
4. I did not feel the Novocain needle. That’s a pretty big deal for me because it was the first time I ever even had Novocain. Dr. Steckle taught me to grin and take the drill, so I was always pretty anti Novocain. Just put me out please? No? Did I say that I didn’t even FEEL the needle?
5. they told me to go to my happy place. And relax. And they let Rye stay and rub my ankle.
6. I also did not feel Dr. Cingel, AT ALL, take out that tooth. Tugging? Pulling? Yanking? No..he coaxed it out and in about 5 minutes too.
7.  And he does take insurance, but there is no list of “we take this and not that one”

What they say is:

“At all times, you can be confident that we will always provide you with our best services without regard to the limitations imposed by your insurance coverage. To do otherwise would violate our contract with you — a contract we feel morally obliged to honor.”

And I will attest that I did actually feel that they cared about that contract to me. And they honored it.
Added bonus, sorry Rye, but the man is also kind to the eyes.

Best Dentists Recommendation in the Hudson Valley

So when you need a dentist; I highly, strongly, completely, whole heartedly recommend:
Thomas F. Cingel DDS
379 Broadway Kingston,
NY 12401
Phone: (845) 331-1085
Email: info@Cingeldental.com

I found HIS personal profile on facebook and creeped for a half seconds, but despite my searches, the practice does not have a public Facebook page to like. ( Note to the Dr: Let’s get together and talk, my kids need cleanings and you need some social media presence!) He does have a nice Google Place listing though, and if you read his other 8 reviews, you will see that I am in good company because they all said the same thing.

Dr. Cingel is the BEST DENTIST IN THE WORLD!