Teeth of a model. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Yesterday, as I sat in my dentist’s chair for my six-month teeth cleaning and checkup, I felt a cold hand clutch my heart as it occurred to me that at some point my teeth will probably reach a point of no return when the last tooth will fall out of my head.
No I don’t have plaque buildup or the disease that attacks gums, I have saliva that attacks my teeth according to the hygienist. She says my chemistry has changed as I have aged.
That might seem unthinkable in today’s modern world of dentistry and medicine, but lately, every time I visit the dentist he finds something else. Not only that, I have discovered if you have a filling, decay can set in underneath and cause havoc.
teeth (Photo credit: jfraser)
I declined the full mouth X-ray this visit, fearing what might lie beneath. My motto with teeth is, “If I can’t feel it don’t fix it.” Besides, my regular hygienist is on maternity leave and I don’t completely trust the novice who sprayed water in my face three times while cleaning my teeth.
You’re doing okay says Dr. L., but next time you should have the full mouth X-ray. Okay I say meekly, knowing the regular gal will have returned by July, and happy to escape his clutches and check out at the reception desk for six more months of denial.
On the way home from our dentist, David tells me he has a cavity. This is his first in 30 years or more. For a second, I think “it’s about time,” and then remember I don’t want him to fall apart either.
—000—
When we were younger, neither David nor I had regular dental care. We lived in the South during the Depression and WWII and came from relatively poor families where dental care was not a high priority in our parents list of concerns. My parents doctored my sibs and I with a home-made first aid kit. I remember sulphur and gauze and iodine. Dad pulled splinters out of our feet and wormed us periodically. Mom gave us paregoric for various ailments. I frequently had stomach aches from eating things I found outside, so paregoric was an important medicine in our house.
I don’t want to cause anyone distress with the list of home remedies, so I will fudge a bit and say, we never had regular medical care when I was young. I had my tonsils out and my appendix burst, but other than those encounters with doctors, all my bouts with pneumonia and other “childhood” diseases were my Mom’s responsibility.
When I had children, I didn’t know the difference between no care and some care and spent an inordinate amount of time in the emergency room at the Naval hospital with my children or me having the odd miscarriage.
English: Dental caries. Bacteria, sugar, time and teeth all combine to produce tooth decay മലയാളം: ദന്തക്ഷയത്തിനുള്ള കാരണങ്ങൾ (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Whenever I have dental X-rays, I ask for a lead apron because I suspect that’s why I ended up with thyroid cancer. I’m trying to stay healthy so I don’t reach that tipping point too quickly. Keeping my fingers crossed too.
The more I see the care – or lack of it – for the elderly, the more I think that I wouldn’t mind not growing old.
You are lucky – I have had manky teeth my whole life.
As an early boomer, I can say, yes, we had much better care. And by the time second grade rolled around for me, it was a big deal to go to the dentist and bring back to school a certificate saying your had been officially okayed. Then your school pix went on a pink construction paper tooth. We were so proud when our class had 100% of our photos on the display.
Now I wonder why I recall those paper teeth as pink, ugh. And what did some of the kids’ parents have to go through to afford the visit and any work required so that the certificate was acquired? Or was the “certificate” just to acknowledge we appeared, not that problems had been addressed?
My grandfather (who died when I was a baby) was a dentist, and so my mother always “drilled” good dental hygiene into her kids. To bring home the point, she kept her father’s old foot-powered dental drill in a corner of her bedroom — that was enough to scare us all into brushing and flossing religiously.
You are going to laugh. WW now has an “ap” you can download to your phone. When you want to know the points in a package, you just activate the ap and point the phone at the product. LOL
G can do that on his phone, leaving me switching yogurts and other thing in amazement.
Yes, we are back to meetings and logging in our foods. I had a 14 point slice of birthday cake at a meeting yesterday and was only 8 points over. The fink G didn’t have any cake.
It got it up 70 here today. Like a gift.
Lovely temperatures. I brought my begonias into the house to help them survive what promises every year to be a cold miserable winter. Lovely January so far, however.
I see my mother growing old and taking care of her is really a character building for me. I see how she is aging and then think about myself, what kind of situation would I want to be in when I’m her age? What should I prepare from now? That’s why I’m very into natural foods and stuff because I want to be able to also ‘be there’ for the grandkids
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Thank you for your insights here.
You are welcome Hanna.
I have been avoiding dental x-rays and mammograms lately, because last year, I underwent so many x-rays (lungs and abdomin) last year for my surgery. I don’t want too much radiation.
Radiation scares me too.
..dad regularly wormed us . . . .
…pneumonia and other childhood diseases . . . .
ouch.
Funny, how times change, I swear I was a lot healthier before I went to see doctors and dentists regularly. Or perhaps I am just getting old and decrepit?
Anyway, no doctors for me either when I was small, and certainly no health giving foods, just regular basic feeds, if I was lucky.
I think the Baby Boomers coming behind us had much better care. Yes, worming is awful but the consequences of doing nothing are worse.