Dental Woes

(Excerpt from a Foxy Croppers post, therefore redundant to the Foxies)

So clumsy me fell straight onto my face when I was 10 years old and ruined one of my front teeth. I've obviously never had the best of dental care, and no one seemed to notice that my tooth was all effed up until 6 years ago when I started going back regularly. When it came to fixing my damaged front tooth, the dentist and I had a little misunderstanding and he ended up filing my tooth down and putting a series of hideous crowns on it.

So fastforward to this year, the fake tooth is loose and needs to be replaced. I've spent the whole summer going from one dentist to a specialist (and back again )who don't seem to communicate with each other and certainly not with me. After being told by the specialist that my tooth and gum were fine, all I needed was a new better quality crown without plastics in it because of my latex allergy (supposedly that's what was causing my gum to be so irritated), I went back to my regular dentist today to put a temporary crown. Well now apparently the tooth is in terrible shape. Mind you, this is THE FIRST TIME the dentist has looked me in the eye and actually spoken to me. Usually he's in such a rush that he comes to do his business and goes onto the next pt without ever asking me how I'm doing.

Anyway, today I guess he finally noticed how nervous I was and teary eyed, so he took the time to tell me that my tooth is basically shot to hell and explained my options.

1. Proceed with a crown lenghthening in an attempt to save my tooth (which the dentist seems to feel might be a waste of money and energy)

2. Get a bridge where they'd have to crown the adjacent teeth (I'm not liking the thought of MORE crowns after all the crappy ones I've had so far)

3. Pull the tooth out and get an implant

I wonder if it's possible to get an implant and the get veneers on the adjacent teeth instead of crowns?

I won't be smiling much for the next few weeks. This temporary crown is the worst I've ever had! The others were way too big, this one is sooo small! It feels like a nub. Yuck.

I should have tried out for The Swan. The free dental work would have been worth the humiliation of sobbing my fool head off about my poor self-esteem. Actually, I've been hearing this a lot as of late, and I must say, I do struggle with certain issues, but as a whole I have pretty darn good self-esteem. I may be self-conscious about certain things (my snaggly toof), but I think I'm alright.

So back to being thankful, that always helps me when I throw myself a pity party. I should be happy that I have any teeth at all. I once had a pt, bike vs pole and the pole won. This kid knocked all this front teeth out, not just a couple, HIS ENTIRE SMILE WAS GONE! How miserable would that be?

Almost feeling better. Of course it helps that I've decided to sequester myself in my apartment. I don't want any contact with anyone and am seriously considering using my plethora of sick time next week. I'm helping out a fellow Foxy Cropper Ginger at the Memories Expo tomorrow. Darn! I forgot 3 of my coworkers are going. Shite. The jig is up. I have to go to work next week.

I'm hungry but I don't know what I can eat. I guess I'll subsist purely on bananas and Lucky Charms for a few weeks for fear of dropping this temp crown. Visions of biting into an In n' Out burger and having my tooth get stuck in it...sigh.