Teeth Are Not Always What They’re Cracked Up To Be

It started about a month ago. One of my upper bicuspids felt loose with several millimeters of give. I toyed with the notion of grabbing the tooth and yanking it out by main strength, but I decided to seek professional help instead. Of course, a visit to the dentist is bound to cost big bucks, so I had to take a pension distribution in preparation.

This afternoon, I finally went in to see Dr. Sakurai. She took one look at my wiggly tooth and, knowing my mouth from past experience, said she suspected the tooth was cracked. So she x-rayed it and, sure enough, there was a horizontal crack halfway down. It came out in two pieces.

Most people would just get a denture, but it seems I’ve inherited a special sensitivity to any pressure on the roof of my mouth from my father. Many times I remember him stopping in the middle of a meal, turning purple, and ejecting his dentures by force across the dinner table. (But then, of course, my parents got their dentures for free courtesy of the Peoples’ Republic of Hungary.)

The other option is super expensive: to get dental implants. Unfortunately, it would be even more expensive for me, as I would have to have an anesthesiologist handy in case I didn’t come out of the anesthetic properly. That is because, lacking a pituitary gland, my body does not produce adrenaline; and sometimes I need adrenaline to come out of the anesthetic.

Fortunately, my missing teeth are to the side, so I don’t yet have a jagged smile. Unfortunately, I may yet; as extractions frequently cause problems to the adjacent healthy teeth. So it goes.