Teeth
by GinafishYesterday was interesting. I went to the dentist to get my teeth cleaned (oh Joy!) and then later went back in the afternoon to get a couple of teeth cosmetically fixed.
I thought I had enamel hypoplasia. My new dentist said it’s a variation of that. But what that means is that my teeth are severly lacking in enamel. That nice white (or yellowish) shiny smooth surface on top of your teeth. It’s inherited and my sis has it also.
A looooonnnnnggg time ago, in the early 80s dental cosmetics were just beginning to develop. People hadn’t heard of home whitening kits, and only Hollywood really cared how white their teeth were. The rest of us hadn’t bought into that yet, although we were all obsessed with straight teeth and the whole braces thing was a big pay off for dentists.
So I had bad teeth. I was lucky enough for my parents to care, and off to the dentist I went for something called bonding. It’s plastic that can be tinted to match your teeth. The dentist works with it in a doughy consistency, they stick it on your tooth and shape it to look like a tooth, and then they use an infrared blue light to cure (or harden) the plastic.
I had the top 8 teeth and front bottom 6 covered. I could now smile in class pictures again. My dentist was awesome.
So now I’ve had the bottom ones for over 20 years. Somehow, this plastic stuff can stain but not be bleached. I don’t get it. The top ones have all popped off at one time or another and had to be replaced so the top ones are a couple of shades lighter than the bottom ones. But when I talk or smile you don’t really see the bottom teeth so you don’t really notice.
Yesterday, I got two teeth touched up to look better. My new dentist is a woman who is 3 years younger than I and just having her first baby in October.
You know you are getting old when you actually start to trust doctors who are younger than yourself. When your classmates first start to become doctors you just snicker because you remember what goofballs they were, but a few years go by, and you realize that if older people are using them, maybe you should too. And then you realize, it’s probably a smart move, because once people become doctors, they usually have lots of loans to pay back so they aren’t going to be changing careers anytime soon, and if you are lucky, you could stick with the same doctor from about 30 to 65. And when you turn 65 you are going to want someone who knows all the new fangled stuff (and they might be cute) so it’s okay for your doctor to retire then. But at the same time, you’ve got a 35 year relationship with a doctor who really knows your medical history, your tolerance for pain, and can perhaps diagnose you with greater accuracy.
So anyway, I got a new dentist b/c my dentist of 30 years finally retired. I started going to him when I was 5. He was awesome. He use to give me and my sister gas and shots because he was afraid of the sensitivity of our teeth when he did work on them. Gas is good…. 
So my new dentist saw me after my teeth were cleaned. Before my afternoon appointment, she had to look up in the big book of dental diseases what exactly was wrong with my teeth. This might give you an idea of how rare it is. She’s a dentist practicing in a city with a population of 55,000 and she’s never seen it before. She’s young, and she’s not seeing all 55,000 people so she had to study up on it.
So she fixes my new plastic bonding all pretty and then she asks if I have kids. Yes, I tell her. She asks if I’ve noticed anything odd about their teeth. Well, I’m pretty certain my son is going to have to have braces and I’ve noticed my daughter’s teeth are a little ‘wavy’ (like lays potato chips) and sharp so if I had to guess, I’d say she had more of a chance of having this when her adult teeth come in. Well, my new dentist looks at me wistfully and says, I hate to tell you this, but what you specifically have is a dominant trait. I studied genetics. I know what that means.
So now I’m thinking not only do I need to save for college (at an average college now up to 15-20 grand a year if boarding), I’m going to need to save to have my children’s teeth capped. Yippee. Or maybe I’ll get lucky and by the time they have all their adult teeth in, they’ll be willing to go on some reality show that will fix their teeth for free. HA! And the dentist wants me to start saving for my teeth to all be capped too. Yeah right…I have 25 teeth that aren’t capped…At 800 per tooth, we’ll just call it an even 1,000 per tooth and leave at that.
25,000 for my mouth (I already have 3 done - thanks Mom and Dad! )
28,000 for E
28,000 for S
71,000 for all plus college.
Sure do wish that was in pesos…. Oh, and did I mention that the above cost does not include any orthodontic care like braces or retainers? Luckily I never needed any, but who knows about my kids.
Oprah? Bill Gates? You like to give to the community right? Call me. I’ll give you the dentist name and number.
So dear readers, if you could change any of the genetics your were dealt, what would you change? I might have rather inherited my dad’s baldness than his teeth. After all, there are a lot of cute wigs out there, and Lord knows I love to change my hairstyle and color every few months any way. How about you???
