G Peters  ♿️ It's still a pandemic btw.

#DentalCareIsHealthCare and it is long past time we had this conversation. Let's put on bullseye on the shame and stigma and isolation people experience when they can't afford dental care.

And as to this point. The fact disability benefits are designed specifically not to lift people out of poverty is not a big secret. And as for the actual costs of not forcing people who medical science has said can't work into poverty....https://twitter.com/mssinenomine/status/1064281170324578304 …

To give you some idea of costs/what's changed now. Because I am on disability and qualify for BC Medical, I had previous dentures covered. The last pair never fit - so bad was the fit that if I tried to chew bread they'd come out, if I tried to bite down the top ones cracked.

Even with coverage a friend leant me hundreds of dollars to make up the difference between what the province covered and what at minimum was needed. That was with some teeth remaining. Now I have none. They were all pulled this week. (See thread on nonsense around pain meds)

A complete top plate can suction into place enough to allow you to speak without implants but the bottom plate without any teeth or implants moves constantly. I now have no teeth and can't afford implants because those aren't covered at all.

To speak without difficulty two implants at bottom are needed. To eat reliably you need those two implants on bottom plus 4-5 on top (according to oral surgeon). Implant costs $1000 for consult + $2500 for each implant. So even just to have bottom done it's $6000 minimum.

I hope people reading replies also take a moment to scroll my TL as MANY people quote-tweeted and some did threads. People who have relatives who died as a result of lack of dental coverage, people who joined the military just to get their teeth fixed, people who went into debt

...people living with 'ticking time bombs,' people too embarrassed to smile at their own wedding, people who have good teeth because their parents sacrificed their own dental health in order to make sure their children's teeth were cared for...

...people whose parents had no money for either their own dental health or their children's, people who had some dental insurance but partial coverage still wasn't enough to make the work they needed done possible...and so many comments I can relate to...

...the lip getting caught on the sharp, jagged edge of a broken tooth - I used to have cuts on the inside of my mouth from one. So many stories about how medications for certain conditions & the conditions themselves affect our teeth & vice versa & yet aren't treated as such.

"More than 30% of young adults have untreated tooth decay (the highest of any age group) 35% have trouble biting and chewing 38% of this age group find life in general “less satisfying” due to teeth and mouth problems."

"The fact that poor oral health has come to be framed in moral terms, rather than as a disease that needs fixing, exacerbates the problem, writes Mary Otto in her fascinating 2017 book, Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America."

Remember this? I'd never had so much response to a thread. So many people shared their experiences of not being able to afford proper dental care and the painful effect it had on their lives. Well today, @DonDavies pressed Liberals to address this issue.https://twitter.com/mssinenomine/status/1066448774090747904 …

https://twitter.com/DonDavies/status/1070778429228941313 …

I want to thank @DonDavies for raising the need for universal health care to include dental care & urge @CDNMinHealth to bring in comprehensive dental coverage for Canadians asap. Every day you wait to do so causes pain & sometimes irreparable harm with far reaching impact.