Teeth

It has been a long time since I have been to the dentist. The last time I went was before Ryan and I got married over 3 years ago. Horrible, I know. We never had dental insurance and therefore, never went to the dentist.

Finally, when I began working at Zions Bank, we were able to get a dental reimbursement plan, YAY! So what did we do? We waited until the very end of the year and only 2 days before all that money would be gone for good, we went to the dentist!

What a good feeling it was to be in that chair with my mouth open wide. I don't especially like all the scraping and grinding sounds, or the smell, but I love the feel of clean teeth. And guess what!? The wonderful woman was happily surprised at the cleanliness of my teeth after 3 1/2 years. She did a marvelous job and even worked extra hard at removing the glue on two teeth that the orthodontist over-looked when my braces came off. None of my other oral hygienists did that!

Cavities. After 3 1/2 long years of no one but myself looking after my teeth, I had one small cavity. Not bad! I was pretty happy with that! Ryan didn't come out so fortunate, he had 2 and maybe a third that would be turning into one soon if nothing was done about it. So we get to go back next week for our cavities to be drilled out and the fillings put in. Lucky us!

Waiting so long to get my teeth checked had me pondering about things I wish were different about my teeth. For example, I have this front tooth that is longer than the other and has a small chip in it. See picture below (look at the teeth and not the burnt cheeks):


My mom thinks that I should go to the orthodontist, get invisalign and have them push it farther up. I don't think this would be helpful because they already tried to do that when I had braces. They tried to push it up and it wouldn't stay. The retainer they gave me was sort of an invisalign retainer with which they tried to keep it pushed up. I had to get 3 new ones because it kept cracking on that tooth due of the strain. Then when I would not wear it during the day, the tooth would fall back into place. It was a constant battle and it hurt to always have my tooth being pushed where it didn't want to go. So unless I want to wear a retainer for the rest of my life, I don't want to do the invisalign.

My opinion on the matter was to see if I could get the tooth filed down to match the other tooth. After all, it does have a little chip in it. I know that there are risks with hitting nerves and other things. But really, the doctors should know what they are doing right?

So what did I do? I asked the dentist if it was possible if I could get my tooth filed down to match the other! And he said yes! He told me that they couldn't do it all the way down, but they could make it match the other one better and file the chip off. Then he asked the nurse for the correct tool, said open wide, and ZzzzZzzZZZZZZZ!! All the way home! Hurray! I was so happy! As he said, it is not perfect, but boy oh boy is it better!

(Note about the picture: I took this using my computer camera (I apologize about not putting make-up on first) and it took the picture with the mirror image. I can't flip it around, so it is inverted. Hence, the tooth we are looking at is on the right side of this picture rather than on the left, as it is in the image above.)


What do you think!? I think it looks much better. Some of you out there may say that the tooth wasn't that bad to begin with, but you aren't the one looking at it in the mirror every day! I am SURE that I noticed it more than anyone else ever would have, but to me it looks WAY better. Everyone always told me that my opinions about myself matter more than anyone else's. Sticks and stones can't break my bones! Yay for straight teeth!!