I had one bridge put in that kept falling out. It fell out in my meal at Olive Garden. It fell out in the popcorn at a movie. The third time it fell out, the dentist made the bridge smaller, I don't know why and put it back into my mouth.
That very night I was eating an orange, the bridge came loose and...I SWALLOWED IT!!! Funny, I was always eating when it would fall out.
I began to panic and my husband tried calling the dentist's emergency number all evening. He never answered. Then David called an online nurse and she told me I should go directly to the hospital. Now I rate hospitals right up there with dentist's. I stay away from them as often as I can. I refused to go.
That night I had visions of the bridge traveling through my system and getting lodged somewhere inside me, gangrene setting in. Pain, agony, surgery. I have a very vivid imagination.
Even so, that night I slept like a baby. David, however, didn't When I got up in the morning, David was dressing and I asked him where he was going. "I'm going to have a word with your dentist." Oh,oh. David doesn't get angry very often, but I knew he was angry now. Suffice it to say, we didn't pay the dentist's bill and I was an ex-patient.
I went three years before I got the nerve to start looking for a new dentist. Then by great fortune a new dentist rode into town on a white horse and brandishing a shiny new drill. I immediately felt at ease with him, something I hadn't felt with previous dentists. My first experience with a dentist was when I was twelve and had a bad tooth. My very first dental checkup. My dad took me in to see him and he ended up pulling the tooth. No anethesia. I felt every pull and heard every last grinding as it was ripped out of my mouth. I cried the whole time. My father got so angry at how mean the dentist had been he told him we would never be back. Okay with me.
Anyway, my new dentist began to systematically recontruct a new smile for me. Even then there were episodes along the way. Like the time after I had just been in and had a tooth repaired I got home and another broke off. Then there was the time I was eating a turkey sub and thought I had found a chicken!?! bone in the sandwich. I found out later it was a piece of a wisdom tooth. I cried and told David he was going to be married to a toothless old hag. Then this spring I got three wisdom teeth pulled.
It took two years, but I finally have healthy teeth and gums and have had two implants put in. but there is something strange about the one implant. It is twice the size of my other teeth.
When the dentist put the implant in, it felt huge in my mouth. The dentist said he made it larger to replace two teeth, but there was only room for one implant so he made it a little bigger to fill in the space. "You'll get use to it," my dentist told me.
I got home and looked at that tooth and it seemed to have grown larger. Surprisingly, I did soon get use to it and don't notice it at all, but it is big.
Here is an artist's? rendition of it.....
Anyway, it chews and grinds really well, and hopefully will last the rest of my life. Can't say that about everything you buy. The lasting the rest of your life bit.
Rest of my life. Rest of my life. Hmmmm. Things don't have to last all that long for me any longer. By the way, the bridge I lost? It either, ahem, passed or I still have it inside me. If I ever have another surgery perhaps the doctors will find a tooth and wonder how in the world that got in there.
Wishing you good dental health. Bye.
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