I have a missing molar, a cracked molar crown, and a bottom front tooth that I lost in November 2004.

I went to the dentist in August for a cleaning and check up and said that I would be open to getting a partial to replace the three teeth. He told me they're a pain and "you have to rinse them off after every meal and food can get stuck under them" then set me up with an $8000 treatment plan with hopes to do another $4000 in the future.

He didn't even care that coming up with $1000 for a partial was a stretch, let alone pulling 12K out of nowhere. His office manager/wife suggested I get a loan or ask family to pay for it.

I asked if they make partials using the new flexible nylon materials and he said "No, I don't even know what you're talking about. I've never heard of it." While I was waiting in the reception area, there was a segment playing on their closed-circuit TV system that they have in every room of the clinic.

There's no way I'm going to get more crowns put on when I've had the worst luck with them over the last 5-10 years. They've been poor quality, break, one dentist even placed one on backwards, it fell off when I was eating and I swallowed it, and had to pay to replace it. The crowns I've had on my top teeth for 27 years are firmly in place, even though they're not cosmetically pleasing because they're opaque.

I've been biting my lip repeatedly this past week, on accident, and it really hurts based on the fact that there's no tooth next to it to close the gap so I have two teeth with corners that dig into my lip. It's obviously puffed up, so it makes it easy to keep biting it repeatedly.

I want this tooth replaced something awful, but I have absolutely no faith in dentists any more. I'm not afraid of having work done. I'm afraid of them pushing expensive procedures on me and then doing a half-assed job and not being accountable.

Anyone out there with a cost-effective partial that can vouch for the fact that they're an acceptable altnerative and not nearly as horrible as dentists try to make them out to be? My mom has had one for almost my entire life and has never complained about it, and hers is the old style with metal hooks and a hard plastic base.