Celeste S. Albuquerque, NM created on Thu May 16, 2013

Celeste S., 36, has nine teeth rotting away in her mouth – nine diseased teeth that should be pulled. But Celeste can’t afford the treatment she needs, even though her husband has dental insurance. The copayments are too high for the family’s budget, and so Salazar goes without dental care, as do her husband and their four children. She lives in constant pain. “It’s there every day,” she says. “At night, it wakes you up. During the day, when you are trying to do something, you are in such pain that you just want to lie down and try to make the pain go away.” Sometimes her face swells up so badly that it’s hard for her to bear. She’s tried hot packs, cold packs and analgesic gels, but nothing really helps. Salazar has pancreatis, a diagnosis she received when she was 30. The medications she takes for her condition have damaged her teeth, causing them to deteriorate little by little, to the point that now it is difficult for her to eat at all and impossible for her to eat foods she used to love, like steak. When she began taking the medications for her pancreatitis, she says, her doctors didn’t tell her about the dangers to her teeth. Now it is too late.

She’s not the only person in her family who needs dental care. Her husband and their children have dental problems as well. Celeste says she and her husband have discussed letting some of their bills go so that they can see a dentist. “But then how are we going to live?” she asks. State assistance is not available to them because her husband works, she says. “It is very hard,” she says. “I wish we could afford to go to the dentist like everybody else.”