False Teeth

by zelda may
(Philippines)

When I was a kid, I didn’t care much about dental care and all that. The result? I grew up with a set of dentures to replace my four front teeth with false teeth all because of my carelessness during my younger days. The good thing though is that I came to my senses, before achieving any further loss of my other permanent teeth.

A bad dental treatment made me change. If taking care of my teeth was the only way I can avoid the dentist’s chair then I decided I should do it. Dentists in our hometown hardly made any updates with their medical know how. If somebody came to them with a toothache, they will prescribe some medicines and ask you to come back once the swelling is gone.

I almost didn’t want to go back since the pain was already gone and I‘ve heard so many awful stories about tooth extraction. The dentist convinced me though that if I don’t go back and have it extracted, the tooth pain will recur all over. The experience was a bit painful but brief and that was when the needle for the anesthesia was injected. I thought my mouth felt funny but I guessed then, that it was because of the anesthesia .

When it was all over, I somehow felt relieved that the bad teeth were gone. As for the gap, all the dentist had to do was take a mold of the gap so he can fix me up with a new set of teeth, albeit false.

In as much as I was naive then and dental care wasn’t so expensive, I thought that was cool. I even thought of having all my real teeth removed and replaced with a complete set of dentures so I won’t experience anymore of those nerve wracking tooth pains. Of course, my mother said I was being foolish and told me to start taking better care of my remaining teeth.

Later on as the anesthesia started to wear-off, my young mind was outraged that the dentist lied. The teeth were gone, but the pain came back and it was more unbearable than the tooth pain I experienced before.

My mother tried to rationalize with me that it was hurting because a lot of nerves had been broken; just another dose of the doctor’s medicine will take away the pain. Soon enough, the blood and the pain were all gone, but I vowed to myself that I would never go back to a dentist’s chair again.

Now it came to a point when I realized that false teeth were not competent replacement for real teeth. For one, the biting and chewing process isn’t as comfortable. You have to be careful with what you bite on unless you want to see your teeth biting the food on its own.

I also came to the knowledge that those four front teeth could have been saved and not removed at all. Had I been to a more learned dentist, those teeth could have been simply treated and prevented from further deterioration. There were fillers and amalgams and they could have been simply capped instead of being taken out of their tooth socket.

Since dental care is no longer as affordable as before, I really make it a point to practice good oral hygiene by regularly brushing, flossing, and visiting the dentist for deep-seated cleaning. I try to avoid any major dental procedures for myself because I’m reserving the dental care plans for my kids who are as hard headed as I was when I was their age. In fact, I try to set a good example so they don't have to experience the same pain I went through.