The Davis Square Community

Hi guys. I need the help of the hive mind. It seems I'm looking for a new dentist, only with a serious twist. This one isn't googleable.

I was just -- just -- at a new-to-me dentist. I had been neglecting my teeth for a few years due to grad school, and was now getting back on the wagon of dental hygiene. The dentist and the hygienist and the other staff were all great. I want to be clear, what happened was one of those wacky, nobody's-fault happenstances.

I have a congenital bone deformity in my lower jaw. This is one of those things dentists and dental hygienists are taught about in school, but don't necessarily ever encounter in the wild (I hear, "Wow! I've never seen one like that!" a lot). This has never actually been a problem getting dental care in the past, just so long as I warn anybody about to work in my mouth to take a look under my tongue in advance, so nobody gets a nasty surprise. Most especially when taking X-rays.

So after doing paperwork, they lead me to the exam room for X-rays and introduce me to the X-ray tech. And I say, btw, there's this thing you need to know about my lower jaw. And I open up my mouth and point, and she says, "Oh, my goodness!" And I say, "But it's not a problem. You just fold the film so it fits."

And she holds up the super-high-tech, newfangled digital X-ray probe gizmo and says, "But... this doesn't fold."

Half an hour and a couple superficial lacerations to my mouth later, she, the dentist and I pretty firmly established that, nope, you just can't take digital X-rays of my teeth, not with the present digital X-ray equipment. Not even with the smaller pediatric size gear. It just won't fit in my mouth.

So my question for the Greater Davis Square collective consciousness is: Have you had your teeth X-rayed anywhere within walking distance from Davis in the last six months where they used good old-fashioned film to do it? This is the kind of x-ray where they put this card-thingy in your mouth, which does not have a wire trailing from it. Also, failing walking-distance, someplace I can get to on the T.

(I understand I may be deeply screwed here. Obviously, digital x-rays are going to be vastly cheaper than film x-rays, because film is expensive and has to be developed -- all the reasons almost everyone in the word has converted from film to digital photography. Add in the drive to have all-digital medical records, and I'm not sure anyone is doing film any more, or will be doing it for long. But I figured I should ask.)