Show You My Teeth

First of all, you should listen to this song as you read this blog posting. Now that you all have that song stuck in your head, let me tell you about my teeth.

Today was the day where I spent 5 hours in the dentist’s chair getting 3 crowns, a veneer, and some bonding done. The appointment went pretty much as the dentist said it would – I had a blanket and my headphones on so I could listen to podcasts ((Coincidentally, I happened to listen to a few episodes of the Savage Lovecast and one of the callers was calling in to ask advice about her fetish for going to the dentist. And I’m sitting in the dentist chair thinking, “To each their own and all… but I really cannot imagine being excited about sitting in a dentist chair!”)) and while I couldn’t fall asleep like I was hoping ((But not really expecting)) to, it was pretty much relaxed as it could be given that I had one billion giant needles stuck in my gums ((After the needles, most of which I couldn’t even feel because freezing from the needle for one tooth spreads far enough to freeze the place where the next needle goes in, I was totally shaky and my heart was racing. So it appears my needle phobia is still with me.)) and then giant portions of my dead teeth shaved down to stumps on which my crowns were placed.

Speaking of which, I have a horrifying photo of myself in the middle of my appointment where my tooth stumps are exposed, before they put the temporary crowns on. Generally, I’m not one to put horrifying photos of myself on the interwebs, but this one is just too fascinating to not share with you. See how much I care about you, blog reader?

Now, before you look at it, please appreciate that I’m (a) not wearing any makeup, (b) sitting at a terrible angle for photo taking, (c) unable to move my face due to the aforementioned one billion needles, (d) covered in various dental apparatus, and (e) only showing you this for educational purposes and will never be seen with such teeth stumps ever again.

Teeth

HORRIFYING!!

OK, so now that you have a Lady Gaga song stuck in your head AND you are emotionally scarred for life from having seen that photo, let’s move on to what I actually look like now. And, in fact, I would like your advice. The teeth you are about to see are my temporary crowns – I get to test drive them for a week to see how I like them and then once I get them how I want them, they’ll make them up as permanent crowns.

Now, you have to ignore the colour of these, as the temporary crowns are just made to test out length and shape, as they don’t have as many colours available in the acrylic that they make the temps out of as they do the porcelain that they’ll make the permanent ones out of. Also, pay not attention to my bruised gums – that’s from all the work they did in my mouth today, not from some horrible degenerative gum disease or anything. So ignore the fact that the teeth are blindingly white and don’t match my other teeth, and ignore my blackened gums, and just focus on the shape:

Teeth

What do you think?

Personally, I don’t like the gap in the middle of the two front teeth at the bottom. The model that they showed me that I originally agreed to do not have this gap, so I’m not sure why that was done (I also didn’t really get a good look at them until I was home, as I was a bit too freaked out by the fact that, in the light of the dentist’s office, you can actually kind of see through the acrylic to the stumps underneath, to really closely examine the shape of the crowns). I also don’t like the waviness of bottom of the two front teeth – I want it to be flat straight across, like the bottom ones (and like they were in the original model they showed me).

They also put the points back on my canines ((I seriously considered Dave’s suggestion that I get retractable fangs, but in the end decided that it just wasn’t worth the extra cost.)) and I think those look OK.

But what do you think? Does anyone have any suggestions of anything else I should change about these? I have an appointment in one week to bring my feedback to my dentist.

Also, as an added bonus for reading through all this, here’s the first photo of me in forever where I’m smiling and you can actually see my teeth:

Teeth

Don’t mind my messy hair – I’d just come back from a post-dentist 13 km run and was too lazy to dry my hair after my shower, so it air dried all haphazard like – or the bags under my eyes, which are entirely school’s fault.

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  • Maybe it’s the angle of hte photo but I think the front two are a little too big compared to the rest of your teeth. And I agree that the wavey bottom thing has to go.

    The gap also seems weird, especially in comparison to your non-gapped, straight-topped bottom front two teeth.

    The ones to the left and right of the front two look great.

    Okay, I just looked at my teeth in the mirror and while the two top front teeth are definitely bigger than my other teeth, they don’t seem, in a relative way, as much bigger as your two new front crowns are vis-a-vis your other teeth.

    Not, of course, that my teeth are by any means perfect.

    Reply

  • They are just temporary so they are not going to be perfect – the permanent ones will end up being properly aligned and sized. I had my 6 six front teeth crowned and the permanent ones ended up being a piece of art. I was tempted to ask my dentist to sign the back of the teeth as they were so well done. Call your dentist to verify about the size, alignment, and the straight bottom edges – if nothing else for your own peace of mind – they will be gorgeous when they are done. You won’t regret the time and pain you’ve gone through – well maybe you will…
    I would not want to go through having the 6 crowns done at the same time…ever again.
    You will be even more gorgeous than you already are when it is all done. Kudos to you and your beautiful smile!

    Reply

  • @Kalev – Yeah, I was wondering if the front two were a bit too big too, but it does look different at different angles. Gah!

    @Lynn – The permanent ones are going to be made based on these temporary ones, so if I don’t tell the dentist otherwise, then they will be exactly the size and shape I have now. I have an appointment in a week to give her my feedback and then they’ll make the permanent ones.

    Reply

  • The stumps picture, as promised, were horrifying. The saga of your teeth really does have everything: suspense, horror, intrigue.

    My cousin took a picture of me when my crown fell out, and if I can ever find it I’ll share it with you. More weird than anything. I don’t have a full stump (because the tooth was shot straight through the middle), I just have this tiny triangle of tooth left below the gumline.

    Reply

  • I would love to see that!

    My stump picture, I think, gives you a sense of what I’d look like as a zombie. Especially the one that I won’t post. It makes the one I did post look like a thing of beauty! But you’d have to feed me a rum and diet Coke – or 7 – to get me to show you that photo!

    Reply

  • I know you wrote this post a long time ago, but I only found it yesterday before I went to deal with my own dental issues, which involves getting my six upper front teeth crowned. It helped me calm down and understand what was about to be done.

    My temporary crowns that I have to wear for a week are hilarious, like a big stick-on monotooth made from a mould, and they are squint. That much I *didn’t* expect! However I trust my dentist of 25 years to discuss with the lab and get it right for the permanent crowns.

    I really didn’t want to have to do this, but I am so sick of feeling ashamed of my teeth and like you have avoided smiling and barely open my mouth when I speak. So looking forward to this work being completed.

    Reply

    • Glad you were able to get the work done! It will probably take a while to get used to smiling and opening your mouth more when you speak – so many years of habit to break! But it’s going to be awesome!

      Reply

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