New Teeth

Quick background for those who are unaware of my mouth drama...

I have soft teeth. Seriously, they chip and crack at every turn! They say it's because of a traumatic birth...some crazy thing about needing enough oxygen...blah blah blah. :) Long story short...I have quite the collection of crowns in my mouth and have had many root canals as well. I cannot even begin to count the time and money I've spent at the dentist office in my life. I have personally experienced many types of dental procedures. It's not all bad, there are much worse things in life, many of which aren't accompanied with awesome drugs. Besides which, my dentist and his staff are awesome and it's not a bad place to be.

Okay...moving on...

I have had crowns on my two front teeth since I was 16...and all front four teeth since early on in college. Well, apparently these four crowns were a bit too bulky for my gums and my gums had "chronic inflammation". Why does this matter? Well, if it goes untreated, my gums will recede and I'll look really stupid. In an effort to rectify this situation, my dentist shaved down my crowns as much as he could last spring. This involved a substantial amount of pain and blood. Just think of the words cut and shave and gums in the same sentence. Now give up any ideas of novacaine. That will give you a general idea of what it was like. Well, it helped a little but my gums continued to be inflamed. So the solution is to get new crowns. With improved technology, they have smaller, all porcelain crowns for front teeth now. They allegedly look more natural and don't have the bulk from having metal underneath.

The saga continues...

On January 2nd of this year (when my dental insurance was fresh since I maxed it out last year) I spent the entire morning in the dentist chair. The bright side of this is that I was able to watch a movie and two episodes of The Office, all while being high on nitrous oxide...too much fun! This time they cut off my old crowns, pushed back my gums, took impressions for the lab, and put on a temporary bridge. This was about as fun as it sounds. My mouth hurt really bad for a few days after this if you can imagine. Not to mention the fact that I have only been able to drink through a straw for three weeks now and I have to break everything I eat into small bites because I can't just bite them. Yeah, even my sandwiches for lunch have to be cut in little pieces...like I'm two. It's funny really.

Last week I had to go back in and they had to push my gums back again and take new impressions. Apparently my gums were bleeding too much last time and it spoiled the impressions. So this time they pushed them back, put some stuff on them to slow the bleeding, and took new impressions. I kind of wanted to kick someone. I felt pretty discouraged because I just wanted this whole mess to be over with. And it made my mouth hurt ridiculously bad yet again.

This brings us to today. I got to go in and get my new teeth! At the moment they are temporarily cemented in because he wanted me to be sure they are perfect before he permanently cemented them. If I want to change anything about them, he will send them back to the lab and have them changed. They look pretty amazing! Also, my gums are already looking better and appear to be healing. I just wanted to give it a few days to be sure there isn't anything that bothers me about them before I make it permanent.

Thankfully, I am nearing the end of this crazy experience. Just one more trip to the dentist, (unless I change anything on the teeth, then at least two). Of course, once this is all done I will have to pay for it. :) So if anyone has thousands of dollars to donate to the "Juli's teeth are ridiculous" fund, feel free! (just kidding)