oh gladly, actually, because i just remembered that i asked my dentists for a copy of my last mouth x-ray, from back in june. so, for more extreme emphasis... THIS is my bad left tooth in question!
(PP: VisiBun / CA: $VisiBun, btw the way.)
four fun details that i'll point out right now:
nightmare pulp scenario with that tooth.
that cracked white bit is the old metal filling. the right half is still fixed to the top surface of my tooth. the left half is not. that filling cracked on its own one random day i think two years ago (or longer), and the metal bit that splintered off is just big and stuck enough in the resulting hole that it can't be removed normally. in other words, i have a bit of free-floating sharp metal trapped in my tooth, and if i accidentally chew with that tooth, it'll stab me right in what feels like the nerves of my tooth/gums. this is what causes that severe tooth, gum, and jaw pain, which radiates directly up to becoming additional ear and head pains, all of which can typically last for about an hour or longer, and is sometimes strong enough to literally drop me to the floor in agony, if not causing me to pass out from the overwhelming pain. all of that, just from accidentally chewing with one wrong spot of my mouth.
that cavity between the fixed half of the filling and the edge of the tooth is fully exposed. any food or liquid that goes into my mouth that i'm not consciously funneling away from the left half of my mouth runs the risk of going into and getting stuck INSIDE OF the goddamn tooth, which can just straight-up hurt me for as long as it's stuck in there (typically until i can manually fish it back out with a metal dental pick and a mirror, which becomes very hard and tedious to do if it slips behind that loose filling). spicy and cold foods/drinks are effectively potential nukes for me because of this.
the tooth that was two spaces ahead of that bad one? i lost that one (and the same tooth on the right side of my mouth) back in my mid/late-teens. as in, well over a decade and some change ago. while simply getting the bad tooth pulled would both solve the pain problem and be the cheaper route to go in this matter, it would also leave me with a free-standing lone tooth on that side. one, that wouldn't be good for that tooth in the long run. two, i already have violent body image issues as it stands, and just going one-toothed in that spot would do nothing good or productive to fight against that.
so, uh. yeah, there's all of that. i am never not in mouth/head pain because of this tooth. it always hurts at least a little bit, even following painkillers (the pain just is easier to ignore the longer that i go without aggravating that tooth's condition with food/drink exposure). i haven't had a single moment of zero bodily pain in years, and this is definitely a key player in why my insomnia has been so bad in recent times (trying to sleep after hurting that tooth is basically impossible, on this same note).
i desperately need a root canal done on that tooth, followed by a crown. based on the procedure quote that i was given last june, my overall cost for this shit...
...sits at just under $5,000. or drastically more, if anything there changes with my insurance.
obviously, i plan on footing that bill as much as i can on my own, using bits pulled from my own paycheck over time. but like holy fuck, any outside help would be extremely appreciated one way or another.