Re: dental details, above.
Has anyone here ever had a procedure called an Apical? It is a root canal inside of a root canal, and involved the dentist going deep up in the gum and is not a common procedure, from what I was told. I needed one on a front tooth about 11 years ago, it was intense, intense...intense.
The tooth was saved, though. Call me picky, I want teeth in the front

Thousands of dollars on that one tooth. Close to $3500, I think.
I do have a 'composite'-- fake tooth, built up with some sort of dentist magic tooth-like substance he attached to broken root canals, on a tooth in the back, actually two teeth. Much less expensive than a crown, but they do sometimes need to be replaced (every 3 years or so).
December has usually been a busy month of dentistry for me, most years, but so far, this year, I'm fine.