• Dental Phobia Support

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But You're Too Young for Dentures!

S

Spektyr

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 6, 2008
Messages
147
Okay, this is going to be a long one. It's also likely to ramble a bit because, for whatever reason, I never found this place until the end of my whole journey.

So I may jump around a little as I remember things.

As I sit here now I don't have my original teeth. I prefer not to say that I don't have any because I do - I paid for them, they're my teeth. Just because they're all stuck together and I can take them out doesn't mean they're not mine. They sure as hell don't fit anyone else.

I just had the final "bad part" done yesterday, so I can't really speak authoritatively on how my new teeth work for me, except to say they're annoying, uncomfortable, difficult to talk with, and make life generally more difficult. However, that said, I'm also still a bit swollen, uncomfortable, and so forth on account of having 14 teeth extracted all at once without sedation so exactly how much of that is the immediate dentures and how much of that is my body protesting having pieces forcibly removed is hard to determine.

But all stories should, at least eventually, start at the beginning. So I shall.
 
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Actually, upon seeing the previous post, I have to apologize. I will not continue this journal nor post here again until I can figure out how to format paragraphs. The forum seems hell bent on smashing everything I write into one massive, illegible paragraph. I refuse to express myself so inelegantly.

EDIT: Problem solved, things are back on track.
 
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You don't appear to have any difficulty in expressing yourself, despite any formatting difficulties. You mustn't withhold your dental adventures from us on that reason alone! Do share. :)
 
How do you put the spaces in for the paragraphs?

It works for me with just using enter.:confused:

Or do you mean to indent?
 
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I found the culprit - it was the level of paranoia I have my computer set to. By specifically flagging this forum as safe my computer started talking to the forum properly, which allows the WYSIWYG interface to function properly.

Charity - I know I'm articulate and anyone who overcomes such formatting would know it too, but writing as much as I have to say without breaking it up into paragraphs is rude to the reader regardless of how cleverly crafted the content might be.

It drives me up the wall when I have to read a POG (Paragraph of Doom) and I won't willingly submit others to it.
 
Okay, so the beginning.

I had a relatively typical childhood for someone my age (mid-30's) in the US. I had a palate expander, I had that plastic sealant stuff for awhile, and so on. My dental hygiene was neither ideal nor absent.

I had a few cavities growing up, broke one of my bigger incisors in a disagreement with a brick wall and had that cosmetically repaired later. I had good teeth and the plastic sealant lasted a lot longer than the docs thought it would.

About ten years ago it came off and perhaps coincidentally, my dental health started a downturn. This isn't to say that the situation I soon found myself in was not my own doing: I drink too much soda and don't brush regularly enough. On the other hand, there's some factors working against me like the sudden loss of a nice plastic forcefield and the Celiac's I have.

So yes, I probably could have kept my teeth longer if I'd been more careful, but even so I'd have ended up here eventually. A lot of my older family members have dentures because Celiac's makes it hard for us to absorb the minerals we need to keep our teeth healthy.


Which means I'm not an ideal example for anyone, but up until a few days ago I certainly had the scary smile ideal for "Before" pictures or to frighten young children into brushing before bed.
 
Hello and welcome....I had 14 teeth extracted about 3 months ago and a upper immidiate denture placed and that was also without sedation...congradulations by the way on a job well done...it's not easy....anyway Part of what your experiencing is the area being swollen but for me it was more getting used to the big piece of plastic in my mouth....I went back many times to have them adjusted and I actually had my dentist make me another denture because my immidiate denture felt off the very first day I had it in....
I guess what I am saying is it does take alot of adjusting but if it doesen't feel right keep gpoing back until it does because you paid good money for your teeth(as did I)and you deserve to have them the way you want and what is comfortable.
My dentist tried to tell me that I was imigining things and that the denture was supposed to feel that way...well I diden't buy it and now I have a denture that fits good and feels as if they are natural(sometimes I forget there even in my mouth:)

So basically its part of the healing prosess physically and mentally but if they just don't feel or look right to you I recommend going back and explain to your dentist.
Good Luck and I promise you that it does get better and in the end it is all worth it.
Your in my thoughts....If u have any questions feel free to pm me.:XXLhug:
 
In my mid-20's I started noticing my teeth weren't doing well. My upper incisors in particular began to decalcify along the gum lines and for a brief moment during this I had dental insurance and had it looked at. The prognosis was expensive, but doable.

Then I lost the job that gave me the insurance and it became impossible to afford in a number of ways. The incisor furthest to my right, which had been repaired with a filling, weakened until it broke off about a third of the way past the gum line. Many other teeth developed visible cavities.

One big problem is that I'm not easily employable. I have Asperger's Syndrome and while I'm (I think) obviously intelligent I have a number of traits that make it difficult for me to hold onto a job for very long (like, for example, the length of time employers require to become eligible for insurance benefits).

So one by one I've got teeth going from bad to worse. My upper incisors break off in a nice alternating "saw tooth" pattern that unsurprisingly fails to inspire a confident smile. Then the remaining two break off as well. I lose the entire crown on one molar - everything above the gum line. Several other molars crack partially.

Two weird things happen during all of this. First, I experience little pain. I'm not sure how this rates with everyone else, but I manage to get by with just a few nights of extreme pain that goes away within a couple days. For the most part, the discomfort is minor.

Second, and most importantly, I meet my wife who is somehow able to look past the fact that I've got the teeth of a meth addict. (I'm not, I assure you.) It's through her that the recent dental work is made possible - she has fantastic insurance.

Anyway, even though I'm working full-time now in a telecommuting job (where my autistic traits are much less likely to get me in trouble) and she's working in management for a local branch of a major retail store, we don't have big piles of money to spend on this so we went to a clinic that deals specifically with the lower end of the income spectrum. I'll put it this way: owning a car and living indoors set us apart from most of the people there.


So began the saga of getting my "prosthetics".
 
I want to take a moment here to mention the dentists I've been to over the last decade (on the rare occasions I'd actually go ahead and pay them to hurt me).

The vast majority of dentists seemed to need to find the largest, sharpest tool in the office which was then inserted between tooth and gum as far as it would go. Somehow, this was part of determining that I would probably need some extractions. I classified this under "things my cat can tell me for free".

I got a lot of condemnation. Yeah, I know the teeth are bad. Yeah, I know that I should've taken better care of them. I'm not looking for a history lesson. When I said before that I experienced little pain I meant of the classic "cloth wrapped around the head and jaw" emergency dentist visit pain. Maybe I've got a high tolerance, maybe I just was lucky to miss out on that. But I was definitely in pain most of the time, just not enough I couldn't use my "Aspie Powers" to block it by focusing my attention elsewhere.

So when I've got minor tooth pain in pretty much the whole 28 (had wisdoms removed when I was 16 - more on that shortly), I have visible cavities throughout, and the consensus is that I may have 3-4 teeth that DON'T need pulled - yeah, keep the "you shoulda brushed more" crap to yourself. I left the time machine in a parallel universe, or else I'd have gone back to tell my younger self that, sporting a scary jagged grin.

And the few dentists that didn't try to spear my eye sockets through my soft palate or give me useless advice about things I couldn't change, were of course attributed with this by my paranoia. I'm sure there's a bunch of really cool dental techs out there who weren't the least bit judgmental of me who I was completely sure were going to go tell their friends about the "moron who didn't brush enough".


But the big reason I didn't like going to the dentist - particularly in reference to the word "extraction" - was my experience getting my wisdom teeth removed. It's silly and it's stupid, but I'll tell you the story anyway.

They could see from the x-rays that I'd need them pulled, and they weren't near the surface so this would be a sedated oral surgery. I was anxious but up to this point the worst thing I'd had done was braces and a couple fillings and, as unpleasant as that was, wasn't enough to make me unreasonably fearful. I go in, lay back in the chair, they stick me with the needles and feed me some gas and I count backwards into sleep.

And wake up with a mouth full of gauze in the same room, except without the half-dozen or so masked people that had just been there. All the machines are turned off, and I'm alone. And half-drugged.

The only thing I could think of (since I wasn't thinking all that clearly) was an image of the doctor saying, "whoops... um... quick, everyone run". So I'm a little freaked out. I swing my feet over the side to the floor. Then I do it again because nothing happened the first time. Finally, third time's a charm and my drunken movements succeed in getting my feet onto the floor. I steady myself, get upright, and wobble into the hall looking for answers to questions I haven't even started asking.

A nurse intercepts me, scolds me about being up, and seats me back in the chair. Without pausing for a moment she orders me to stay there as she flutters back out of the room. Great. Still no idea what's going on.

So I grab the little pulse-ox thing that they stick on your fingertip, put it on, and begin trying to figure out how to make the machine work. Those things make a loud noise when you turn them on, apparently, and it summoned Mean Nurse before I had a chance to do anything else. She yanked it off my finger, turned the machine off, and told me to "knock that off" and just sit there.

A few minutes later she comes back, stands me up, sticks a paper bag in my hand and practically frog-walks me out the emergency exit in the back where to my surprise, my mom is waiting with the car, door open. I'm stuffed into the passenger side by Mean Nurse, the door is closed and we're headed home. I look at my mom, at the paper bag, then at my mom and weakly ask (muffled by cotton) "what happened?"


So yeah... pretty much since then I've been far more suspicious of dentistry.
 
About 2 months ago I had my first extractions. For years I swore that the only way a dentist would get a tooth out my head would be if I was out cold. Unfortunately, that cost a lot more and the clinic I go to doesn't have the equipment for that anyway.

So I had four lower teeth on the left side pulled with local anesthesia. The location was an easy pick - I'd just recently developed an extremely sensitive tooth there (one with a partially broken crown) that wouldn't allow even the slightest chewing pressure without excruciating pain. The extractions went smoothly enough and taught me the first important lesson of having your lower teeth pulled:

DO NOT RELAX YOUR JAW. My jaw opens a normal amount and then has this tiny bit more that it will open where it kind of "pops" a bit and halfway locks into place. Usually when a dentist says "open", I jack that puppy all the way and then just let it lock. (It doesn't really lock, it just doesn't close up on it own unless I wiggle side to side.) Here's the thing: if the dentist has to apply pressure in any direction to your lower teeth, that translates directly through the jaw into the joints on both sides. Imagine wrestling with someone who's trying to get you to tap out by bending your elbow farther straight than it wants to go. Unfun.

Instead, you want to open your jaw most of the way and then use your muscles to tighten it down so the dentist has a more stable platform to work against. Then when he pushes and pulls your muscles are taking most of the force rather than your jaw joints. Mine were REALLY sore for more than a week after the first extractions. (Also note that the molars take a lot more work to get out than the front teeth.)

2 weeks later I go back to get the upper four teeth on that side done (everything behind the canines). No special lessons to learn there, except that you really don't want your teeth to break off in the middle of this. Not that you've got a lot of control over that, but my bicuspid broke and the dentist had to use half the tool box to get the root out. Made for a much longer recovery. Not his fault, just the luck of the draw.

The next visit was another 2 weeks later and I opted to have the two molars and pre-molar on the bottom right pulled because without my upper incisors intact I was concerned that if I were left with just the front 12 teeth there wouldn't be strong enough contact to keep my mouth from closing too much and putting painful lateral stress on the teeth. Leaving the bicuspids gave me a more solid stopping point as well as a very limited mashing ability. (I also employed my open-clench jaw here and had very little joint pain.)

Another 2 weeks and I had the upper three pulled. Three days later I lost the clot in one of the sockets overnight and woke up with a lot more clotted blood in my mouth than I ever want to see again. Used the black tea bag method to get it under control, but not without a certain degree of panic.

Minor segue here: At this point both sides of my mouth had pointed bone protrusions on the outer, upper sides just below where the gumline had been. I'm not sure what caused them, but it was like having tiny pointy teeth that stuck about 45 degrees forward and out. Perfect for poking the inside of your cheeks every time you smile. When I went in a week after to get the stitches removed they realized those couldn't stay, so they had to go in and remove some of the bone.

That was very unpleasant, but once done left me with a mouth that was actually nice to own - not counting the 14 bad front teeth and absence of molars.

Then, yesterday, I went in to get the remaining teeth pulled and the immediate denture fitted.

The upper bicuspid took a lot of coercion to get out. The doc actually said "now that's a tooth" once it came free. The rest came out so quickly I was unable to keep up with the count. I keep my eyes closed because my imagination is just a bit too good - I'll psyche myself out. But I still tried to keep track of what was going on so that I'd know how much longer I had to put up with it. Front teeth are so easy I didn't notice several of them come out.


So that's it so far. I've got the immediate fitted (I use the term loosely since it doesn't fit all that well at the moment). Per instructions I haven't removed it yet - tonight is the earliest I'm supposed to. It currently has an annoying overbite that makes me feel like I need a cheap trailer and a primer-colored late model Trans Am.

I also had a bit of bleeding last night, though not as bad as the previous extraction.

Basically at this point, I'm just really looking forward to getting the healing done and these uncomfortable immediates adjusted.
 
Oh, I'd also like to point out a few of the incredibly unhelpful things people like to say if you tell them you're getting dentures.

1. "You'll never really enjoy a steak again."
Really? You want me to believe that sacrificing the bulk of my bite strength might impact how enjoyable it is to chew tough foods? Or that covering most of my soft palate is going to impact my ability to taste those foods?

Yeah, how about these Helpy-McHelpertons try eating a steak where every other tooth in their mouth is broken, painful, or both.

Retards.

2. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather have a partial?"
Yes, Mr. Random Guy who is obviously a part-time dentist - I would certainly prefer a partial. Not only do I have an abundance of salvageable teeth, I have an overabundance of money that would be needed to repair those teeth enough that they could even function as the platform for a partial.

And for the record, I did ask. It would've ended up costing more than 4 times as much and that's assuming that none of the teeth would need a surgical repair.


But my all-time favorite has got to be:
3. "You're too young to get dentures!"
Also known as "You're going to run out of bone before you're 60."

These people just make me want to more fully explore the sculpting of human flesh with my little-league baseball bat. First off, it doesn't matter how old I am, this is what has to be done. I'm not going to keep living my life wondering when I'm finally going to experience that mind-melting pain people describe, or when the extreme disrepair of my teeth is going to cross the threshold and actually damage my heart.

I get it. I'm young compared to the usual Fixodent purchaser.

But for the whole "doomsayer" crowd out there, here's something to think about: implants. Yeah, medical friggin' science. That's the advantage of being young - I've got a lot of time to fix my mistakes. If it takes me 10 years to work up the money (and courage) to have bionic mouth implants installed, I'm not going to lose anything.

Besides, they're growing new teeth these days. It's bleeding edge experimentation, but it's possible I'm going to live to see the day they can actually replace your teeth with... teeth.


But ultimately what it comes down to is not kicking someone when they're down. Someone who tells you they have to get dentures doesn't need for you to point out all the stuff that's going to suck. They've probably heard it already and imagined much more.

And they wonder why we need a forum like this?
 
One other thing I forgot to mention - an extra part of the recovery process that I have to go though. Full body muscle fatigue.

I wouldn't necessarily classify my aversion to dentists as a full-blown phobia but I definitely have "issues".

Part of the problem I have is the tendency to jump a lot when hurt. I'm naturally very combative. You know how kids love to play the game where you hide around a corner, wait for someone to come by and then jump out and yell at them to startle them? My sister did that one time and one time only. My reaction to a loud noise like that is to bellow back, and I'm normally a lot louder. I scared her so much she never tried it again.

I'm like that. Even if I'm expecting it my instinct is to move away or strike back at pain. So I compensate by tensing up all the major muscles. I cross my legs at the shins, fold my arms across my stomach, and tighten up until I could be suspended by two chairs at heel and head (just like the hypnotists like to do).

Do that and hold it for the half hour or hour it takes to get everything done.


I'm completely wiped out for a couple days afterward.
 
Another random thought...

People have described having upper teeth pulled, particularly the canines, as "having your face pulled off". I see where they're coming from there, but I think that's a bit simplistic and sensationalist (at least in my experience).

Lower teeth suck - mostly the back ones - because the jaw bone is hard to stabilize and so a LOT of stress can be put on the mandible joint. By closing the jaw slightly and tensing the muscles to hold it in place against what the dentist needs to do, a good amount of that stress can be avoided. The second time I had lower molars pulled I did not experience noticeable joint pain.

But the upper teeth can be a bit scarier in many ways because the sound translates much better through the skull. To me it sounded like a cross between crushing a styrofoam peanut slowly with your hands and pulling a boot out of the mud. Near the end of my experience I was actually finding it to be a relieving sound.

The bones of the face and head aren't all one big bone (the skull), but a lot of bones that don't really have movable joints. When certain upper teeth are pulled, I could definitely feel a remarkable amount of strain on my facial bones. It was not pleasant, but not exactly painful. It's just uncomfortable.

Later on, I've noticed rather consistent headaches for the first few days, but I am a big-time caffeine user who wisely stays off the soda and coffee for the first couple days, so I can't say where the headache comes from for sure.

As I said earlier, though, the incisors are almost a non-issue compared to anything else. When I was in to get them and 6 other's pulled the dentist got the incisors done without me realizing he was even working on them.

Still, my face feels a little "off" at the moment. Anyone who's taken a good punch knows what I'm talking about. Just kind of mild achy feeling like things got loosened up a bit.
 
Spektyr, I gotta tell you I love your way with words..."things my cat can tell me for free." LOL. I have a cat, I need to talk to him about being more informative.

I also know about the difficulties of Asperger's - I have it as well. It has its gifts (eloquence) and its curses (everything I say seems to get misunderstood).
 
(everything I say seems to get misunderstood).

Ain't that the truth. I've lost more jobs that way... well that and some new rule gets announced, which everyone with half a brain realizes is a stupid rule, and mention what everyone's thinking out loud.

Only later do I realize that the moron who thought up the rule (who was promoted through management's "fail upward" program) was standing within earshot when I said their new idea was retarded.

And of course these people can't differentiate between themselves and their ideas - if you say they have a stupid idea they think you're saying they're stupid. We ALL have stupid ideas sometimes. Personally, I'd rather have someone point to my stupid idea, identify it as such, and be spared the humiliation of having it fail publicly.


That's probably my biggest gripe about NT's (neurotypicals, or "normal" people, for those who don't know) is that they inject their ego into everything. I'm not saying I don't have a high opinion of myself. I do. I've turned off a lot of people simply because I believe I can and will do whatever the hell I want to do because I know I'm smart enough to find a way sooner or later. But even I don't think that my ideas and my opinions are the same thing as myself. All of those things change without making me "better" or "worse".

So it just drives me nuts when I'm having a nice mature debate over some topic and someone whips out the "oh, well my uncle's cousin, blah, blah, blah" and I belittle the worth of anecdotal evidence only to have them get really irate because I'm calling them, their uncle, and their uncle's cousin all liars. I've got just as much ego as the next guy - probably more - but I keep my ego where it belongs: within me. I'm acutely aware that my opinions and ideas last only as long as it takes me to come up with better ideas. So why then would I pour all my self-worth into an idea?


Is it any shock I met my wife on a debate forum and fell in love with her because she was exactly like me in that regard, intelligent enough to stalemate me (or just plain beat me) every time we were on opposite sides, and never once confuse either of our stances or arguments for anything more than they were?

She's absolutely fantastic, by the way... far better than I deserve. Like I said before, she looked past my horrible teeth, never once reacted with revulsion, and has been unbelievably supporting through all this.
 
Today's Update:

I took the dentures out last night for the first time. That was not pleasant and if I wasn't sure it would get better with time I'd probably have gotten really depressed. Getting them out hurt quite a bit, and to make matters worse the upper was full of nasty clotted blood.

So I spent a good amount of time cleaning it and my mouth. The lowers were actually harder to get out (more painful).

On the upside, everything seems to be healing well enough to my untrained eye. The sensation of being able to close your jaw more than normal is very strange. I can actually feel the muscle bunch up a little in the back of the jaw, which helps prevent me from closing it completely (so that the gums meet in the front). I imagine that will lessen over time which is fine with me, I just don't want to accidentally bash the injured sites together while they're healing.


Putting the dentures back in this morning was depressing. The uppers weren't too much trouble, but did twinge a bit going in. I didn't put enough adhesive on the first time, so I got to do it twice.

The lowers were just as painful going in as they were coming out. So of course my mind starts panicking about all kinds of irrational stuff, and I felt like just giving up in that universal "stay in bed for the rest of your life" way. But I know I can't so I kept at it until I got them in. It's a lot harder to tell when the lowers are all the way in.


Overall the dentures are rather ill-fitting and pinchy. I don't particularly like them but I'm rational enough to realize that my mouth is in a bit of chaos at the moment and the dentures will probably get better as I get them tweaked more.

Here's a question (I'm going to also ask it in the appropriate forum):

Is there any reason I shouldn't take my dentures out and go "commando" for the day?

I had the last teeth pulled and the immediate put in on Tuesday morning. Per instructions I left them in until Wednesday night. I put them back in this morning but my gums are sore enough I'm sure I'm not going to do any real chewing today. I felt hungry pretty much up to the point I put them in, so I figure I'll probably eat more without them.

I've got an appointment to have them looked at tomorrow morning so I don't want to mess things up if having them out for most the day will change the way they fit tomorrow or something.
 
I salute your courage! You seem to have marched right in and conquered this situation in your own way... something we all need to be able to do from time to time.

I wish the best for you as you continue to recover, also. I know it's not over; it'll still be a little while before you feel completely like your normal self again. If you handle everything as resolutely as you have thus far, though, I can't see it keeping you on the sidelines for very long.

Thanks for sharing your story! I always love to hear of others' experiences. :)
 
Okay, I've just gotten back from my first fitting appointment. My dentist was very cool about everything. He's not one of the guys that's gone to the trouble to learn to give painless injections (not at all) but he seems like he's a good dentist and most importantly for me, the clinic he's at is affordable. (Our insurance pays 50% and we're out of pocket right at $900 for all the extractions and dentures so far.)

So I drew up some little diagrams of what parts of the dentures were hurting and he ground away for a little while and we talked about what was still to come. The uppers fit much better now - not perfect - but now most of the discomfort comes from it pushing more on the gums in the front where I recently had teeth extracted. I think as the healing progresses it will get more comfortable.

The lowers are still not great, but they don't hurt just sitting there. At least not so much. What still hurts is likely just the sore spots because those still hurt a little if I bump into them with the denture out. The lower is a little bit loose now, but that's infinitely better pinching.

Things I asked:
Will I heal faster with the dentures in or out: out.
Will soft drinks damage the dentures: nope.
What's next: I'll probably need another fitting next week, and a few more over the next few months. At 3 months they'll do a reline from a new mold and the dentures should fit very well at that point.

So while I was really depressed yesterday, I'm feeling much more optimistic today. I still prefer not wearing the dentures, but I can put them in without psyching myself up and wimping out several times. Here I am, a relatively big guy who doesn't think twice about charging into danger (I have literally attacked a burglar and forced him to flee my house) and I was whining like a little kid, at least on the inside, each time I had to jam my lower dentures in.

Not exactly an ego booster.

But I'm feeling better now. I can get through it. It sucks, a lot, but it looks like things should start getting better if a little slowly.
 
I just remembered another obstacle in my whole saga: finding the clinic.

Generally speaking, I don't like dealing with people. Because of my Asperger's I have a good amount of difficulty with it and adding in a topic of conversation I'm not comfortable with makes it much worse.

So as much as I wanted to hammer out all the details the prospect of picking up the phone and asking a lot of questions to not one, but several places to find the best one was just one of those tasks that seems so big you can't even get started.

I'm lucky though, I've got a fantastic wife and she did the work for me even though she didn't really understand how important it was to me that she did. She knows about my Asperger's and so forth but sometimes I think she doesn't really understand how much it can hold me back at times.

So my wife tracked down the best place for us, financially, and we checked it out. Turned out to be really nice and I crossed that hurdle.

Well, to keep the analogy accurate, I crossed the hurdle after my wife laid it over for me.
 
Today's Update:

Got up this morning and put the dentures in. I used Super Polygrip "Ultra Fresh" adhesive on the upper rather than the Fixodent Control that came in a little tube with all the stuff my dentist gave me. I was hoping it would stay stuck to itself better than the Fixodent. It didn't.

The dentures went in well enough. The lowers still fit a little loose (I can pop them up with just my tongue) but as I've said, that's much preferable to pinchy.

Both sets still poke a bit at the top of the gums in some places where the inside of the cheek or lip meets the gums, and I've still got some discomfort in other spots, but things seem to be improving. One spot on the lower gives me the sensation of having the peak of gum between two front teeth being pushed downward, like if you bite into a carrot wrong and it jams down a little hard on your gums before it bites off clean. That spot in my mouth is still really inflamed by the whole "having teeth pulled out" thing, so I'm not worried about it.

I'm not liking it, not at all, but I'm not worried.

After the teeth went in the wife and I went shopping for a few things and then came home. I'm still pretty self-conscious about the dentures, particularly that it's harder for me to close my lips over them, but I didn't notice anyone giving me more strange looks than I usually get. (I'm tall, in my thirties, with long dark hair and about a week's beard growth, so I get a few looks now and then simply because I don't look like your average adult male in the Bible Belt.)

Came home, picked a few cherry tomatoes out of the garden, and then decided to challenge my new teeth with one of the tomatoes. It took a bit of doing, but I managed to mash it up enough to consider it chewed. I certainly would not want to eat like that in public, but the dentures are starting to show some promise.

That's one of my big things I worry about: how long it will be (if ever) before I feel comfortable eating at a restaurant. My wife hates eating alone, and it's not really fair for her to have to eat a soft/liquid diet just because I do, but even if I go somewhere and order the soup I can't really eat like a grown-up. I'm a lot better with soft foods with the teeth out, which would bother most of the other people around, and I really don't have the hang of eating with decent manners with the dentures in.

I could care less if people thing I'm weird or strange... but I just don't want to look like some mentally challenged guy who might start eating ketchup with a spoon at any moment.

Anyway, I also attacked a twice-baked potato with my prosthetic teeth and got about halfway through it before the discomfort and annoyance with my ineptitude using them got the best of me and I had to take them out. I saved the left-overs and I'll finish them later today sans-teeth.

Taking the uppers out is now far more annoying than the lowers. Before the last adjustment I used to dread taking the lowers out because they were so tight, but now they come out with little effort. I'm sure I'd hate that in the long run, but right now I'm just trying to get used to the whole thing and loose is better than tight.

The uppers... man that dental adhesive is sticky. That stuff would glue two dolphins together permanently. What's worse is it seems to stick to anything that's wet better than it sticks to itself, so when I pull the denture out it's got this stuff stuck to it, and I've still got it all over the roof of my mouth as well. My left side is pretty well healed, but the upper right molars were taken out less than 3 weeks ago so it's not exactly ground I can scrub with a brush to get the glue off. Got a little bleeding from one of the sockets today, but it stopped pretty quick. It was enough to make sure my appetite for the remaining potato wouldn't be back for awhile.

(On that note: I love a rare steak. But I've swallowed enough blood in the last two months it'll be awhile before I really want one.)

I think I may look into that adhesive tape stuff - anything more likely to be easily removed. Once I'm better healed and most of the inside surface is in shape for a little friendly scrubbing I may feel differently, but right now I want more of a Plug-and-Play system.


In other news, I decided I've had enough of the caffeine withdrawal and had some soda. I'm going to rinse with saltwater once I get done here to help clean everything so that there's less chance the excess sugar will feed any nasty germs, but it's nice to not have the back of my skull undulating like a bass drum.

I think it may be time to resume my coffee brewing - definitely the better of the two caffeine sources, hygienically. I'll probably have to let it cool more than usual though. Perhaps I'll do some iced coffee... my wife did bring home a pound of whole bean that's supposed to be very good as an iced coffee.


Just thinking about resuming caffeine has lifted my spirits. Heck, I might even put my teeth in and go to the hardware store later today. I wonder if I could get by with just popping them in, no adhesive, and being the tall dark and silent type...

Most people don't try to talk to me much, I apparently don't seem very approachable in person. But then the cashiers are usually required to make small talk. I could probably get by with a non-committal grunt or two.

Yes, I think this could work. And if I run into someone I know (which never happens, but Murphy would suggest would happen when I least desire it) I could keep my teeth clenched and explain that I just had a lot of work done (as anyone who knows me would realize simply because I had incisors visible).

To the hardware store with me! Oooh, or Wal-Mart - they probably have adhesive tape there too!

Saltwater rinse first...
 
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