Don’t Drink From Bottles

This morning was my appointment to get my front teeth fixed and snow be damned I was going to get to the dentist so he could replace my old bonding on my front teeth. This was no emergency, but it was the day I had psychologically prepared for and I was not about to let the dusting of snow we had at 7:30 in the morning stop me. I knew if I did not go today I might have not rescheduled until I had broken off my old repaired teeth.

I have spent my whole life dealing with front teeth problems and I am always thankful for the brilliance of dental chemists who invent new and better ways to repair broken teeth.

It all started when I was five and climbing our chain link fence I chipped a front tooth. It wasn’t that bad, but back in the dark ages of dental care there was not much they could do about it.

Then when I was about 11 a boy on the school bus pushed me and I hit the metal bar on the top of the seat and chipped the same front tooth big time. By then there was some kind of fix our family dentist was able to do to it that at least kept the exposed nerve covered, but it was not a perfect match for my other tooth.

Then on New Years Eve my first year out of college, when I still had not figured out that drinking was not a good idea for me I chipped my other front tooth on a bottle of champagne. Thankfully my fabulous dentist in Washington worked out of his house and was willing to fix my tooth on New Years Day as long as I was willing to act as my own dental assistant and hold all the tools.

Lucky for me a new dental material had been invented called bonding so my Dentist was able to mold a new half tooth on both of my two broken front teeth. Over the years those fixes have had to be replaced this being the third and only voluntary time. The first two times I had to do a replacement it was because the bonding had finally given up and fallen off one of my teeth.

Although it was not pleasant to have to go around with a broken tooth it certainly made putting the new ones on easy since there was nothing to remove. That is why I was nervous about today. Although I was practically a pro having already assisted in my own fabrication of new teeth, I never had two perfectly good bonded teeth removed to make way for new ones.

I was doing it for precautionary reasons because my old ones had out lived their predicted life and they discolor differently than real teeth. What I really did not want to have happen was for my bonded teeth to decide to fall off when I was in a foreign country. Love travel, as much as I do I do not trust my teeth to anyone other than my American dentist.

Thank goodness my wonderful young dentist Andrew as well as his assistant were not deterred from coming into to work in the snow. I was able to lie down in the chair covered by a warm snuggly blanket and go into a Zen mode of mouth breathing while I ignored the machines used to remove the old and put on the new. In an hour I had new beautiful teeth that look so much better than the old. God bless people who invent this stuff and the ones who put it on. I have another fifteen years before have to worry about this again, I hope.