TheBanyanTree: Long in the Tooth

[Margaret R. Kramer]

I always brush my teeth.  I can’t imagine starting a day with a grungy
mouth.  However, I didn’t go to the dentist for years.  I had a dentist who
would yell at me because I would squirm in pain when the Novocain wasn’t
working.  So I just stopped going to the dentist.

I think all the ads on TV and the radio about the new caring dentistry lured
me back to the dentist’s office.  Plus, my teeth were rotting in my mouth
and unless I wanted to look like a hillbilly with no teeth, I though I’d
better take care of this.

Last fall I got up the courage to make a dentist appointment.  My dentist is
a 28 year old whippersnapper.  And she is very caring.  She didn’t faint
from shock at the state of my mouth or give me any lectures about my black
teeth.  She grabbed a sharp instrument and went to work.

She filled the cavities.  She always checked with me about my pain
threshold.  She had a difficult time extracting one of my teeth, and she
admitted it, and then referred me to a specialist who took 30 seconds to
yank out the tooth.

She took impressions of my teeth for a partial.  When the partial didn’t fit
right, she didn’t just shove it in my mouth; she called in the lab guy who
made it and had him worm it around in my mouth.  He rebuilt the partial so
now it fits comfortably.

The final step of last year’s dental work was the scaling and root planing,
which removed the plaque from my teeth and also dug out the junk in the deep
pockets around my teeth.  It’s like a super duper cleaning.  Now that hurt!

After all that dental work, I was determined not to let my teeth fall into
such decay again.  Most of my morning ritual is spent on my teeth.  I have
my plaque rinse.  I have my new Sonicare toothbrush.  I brush my partial.  I
floss my teeth.  Then I rinse my mouth out with fluoride.  I’m done with my
teeth in about an hour!

I went in for my six month cleaning last week.  I didn’t have any cavities!
The deep pockets around my teeth are disappearing and the gum tissue is
building up again.

I love being able to smile without worrying about my ugly old teeth turning
people to stone.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at earthlink.net

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