I have seven fewer this year than I did in 2013. One was yanked in early January after it abscessed (I'm sure plenty of you recall my endless whining about that), and six more were yanked On Wednesday. Two wisdom teeth, four teeth that could not be saved.
Egads. Not fun, of course.
I'm not sure why I have such awful teeth. When I was younger, I assumed it was because I was uninsured for most of my teens and never had regular cleanings or maintenance.
Then when I was a bit older, I assumed it was due to partying every night of the week and crashing without brushing or flossing.
So when I was about 23, I went to get my teeth fixed, once and for all. I figured since I wasn't the party animal I used to be and brushed and flossed twice daily, I don't have a sweet tooth, rarely drink soda, and was more or less healthy, it would be fixed and that would be that.
But it was not to be.
It doesn't help that I'm terrified of dentists, but I found one that I liked and over the course of a month or so he fixed one quadrant (the upper left). I still hated the visits, but I sat through them bravely.
I brushed and flossed every morning and every night, had a glass of milk every morning, avoided sweets (easy for me to do), and practiced perfect oral hygiene. In fact, despite my rotten teeth, I was my hygienist's favorite patient because I never had plaque build up and she could see I did everything I was supposed to do.
By month three with that dentist, we were starting work on the second quadrant and the work that had been done on the first was already slipping away.
Needless to say, that completely deflated me and I quit going back altogether.
This is probably a by-product of my depression. My thinking was that all my teeth suck, they're going to continue to suck, and going to the dentist sucks and I am tired of so much suck. So I figured I'd just wait until they all rotted out of my mouth and get dentures when that happened.
But since the decay in my mouth was completely inexplicable ("You must have very acidic saliva," said more than one oral health professional), and since I was not going to abandon basic hygiene principles, the decay didn't happen quickly. It would happen more like this: one day, a tooth would start hurting a bit. I could feel a cavity forming or (more often) getting larger. Then one day, a huge chunk of the tooth would just fall off in my mouth.
This is a weird experience, and there was never any warning. The last time it happened, in fact, I had no toothache, no worries. I was riding my bike on a lovely Spring day when I suddenly felt a "thunk" in my mouth. I pulled into a parking lot to check it out, and there was a pencil eraser sized tooth fragment that had just detached from the rest of the tooth. I stared at it in the palm of my hand for a minute, muttered obscenities under my breath, then threw the thing in the gutter. I was annoyed, but not in pain. By the end of the night I had mostly forgotten it had happened.
This is just how my mouth has operated over the years.
That one I lost on a Spring day was one that was finally yanked yesterday. That bike ride was in 2009, so for nearly five years I've just had this rotten tooth in my mouth but it rarely ached. Food would get stuck in it and bother me, but for the most part it was just another stub of a tooth, albeit the worst one (and the only one of the six that required surgical removal).
One day last year, however, it was hurting. I was in my car on the way home and started rubbing the gum line around it, applying just a bit of pressure. There was a terrible sounding "POP" then "crack," but nothing came of it, and the pain stopped.
Those sounds, however, haunted me.
I found a good dentist here and have resumed work on my teeth. I'm under no illusion that the work is going to stick, although he seems to think it will. It is preposterous, he says, that I have such healthy gums and bones and yet my teeth are rotting. And he's guaranteeing his work for life, as long as I brush and floss and all that (which I always do).
He is an amazing dentist. The teeth he pulled on Wednesday are already showing signs of healing, and my pain has been minimal. Having had three other teeth pulled by other dentists, I know that this is a luxury. Especially when dealing with wisdom teeth.
But I can tell that he still doesn't know what to make of me. When his hygentiest reported on the state of my teeth- a lot of decay but healthy gums and tissue, strong bones, minimal plaque build-up, he was incredulous.
After the cleaning, he asked me to come into his office and we discussed my habits. He apologized for asking, but explained that he's a professional and has to ask: do I have a history of drug abuse?
Nope, nothing more hardcore than marijuana in my early twenties. Drugs aren't my thing.
Eat a lot of sweets?
Nope, I prefer salty to sweet (my gf jumped in here and told him she's only seen me drink one or two sodas in our three years together, and maybe a handful of times have I indulged in sugary deserts).
Drink a lot of coffee? Yes.
Add sugar? Hell no, that ruins it. Two creams, no sugar.
Okay, what about Gatorade or lemonade, citrus-y drinks?
No, after drinking coffee in the morning I have a glass of milk, then drink water for the rest of the day and only occasionally have either a coffee or diet soda in the afternoon.
He said he's seen a lot of patients who blame their oral health on genetics but that is rarely the case. I think he's starting to accept that it may be the case with me.
So why am I writing this?
For one, I'm often offended (or more accurately, personally hurt) over snide remarks about teeth that I read here or elsewhere. The fact is that I am genetically predisposed to having bad teeth, but even if I wasn't I still wouldn't have had the means to take care of them for most of my life.
Popular culture seems to believe that only rednecks or meth heads have bad teeth. I do admit to having some redneck blood in me (would you expect anything less from a native Idahoan?), but my teeth aren't the proof of that.
So next time you want to point out something awful about someone's teeth, consider that they are most likely more ashamed of it than you would care to believe. I am a moderately attractive woman who always hides her smile in public. I would like to smile the way the rest of the world does, but I don't want the rest of the world to see my teeth.
Second, it's to remind everyone to take care of your teeth! They're the only ones you'll ever have. I'm in my mid thirties and now have no molars on the bottom left side of my mouth, only one on both the top and bottom right side, and two on the upper left. For someone who loves pistachios and pumpkin seeds, this has created an existential crisis.
You may also be genetically doomed to rotten teeth, but putting off the inevitable won't make anything easier. If you have the means, please see a dentist. If you don't have the means, find a dental college nearby. They'll do the work for free or close to it. If you don't live near one of those, there are probably clinics nearby that offer services on a sliding scale.
Do whatever you have to do. Because once the teeth are pulled, they're gone forever.
As for me, I'm spending about $3K from my year end bonus to fix as much as I can as quickly as I can. I am incredibly fortunate to have this amount of cash to go towards my oral health; many aren't that fortunate and I acknowledge that with a heavy heart. At the same time, considering that the estimate for all the work I need to have done rings up at $15K (including the charges from yesterday, which consumed my entire 2014 cap for dental and cost about $200 out of pocket).
And I've still got twenty teeth in my mouth that need work. I'll either have to take out a loan to cover the rest or continue to do it piece meal as I gather the cash. (I only have $3K lying around once a year, after all, and about $200 in my monthly budget for dental/medical expenses).
So if you're like me and have bad teeth, please seek out resources to help you get them fixed.
And if you've never experienced this particular Hell, please don't judge others who are living it right now.