My Dental History

Saturday, April 28th, 2012

This sounds totally boring, I know.

But seriously, my dental story is like non other. It’s what I get for growing up overseas…in a developing country…where clinics are actually in people’s spare bedrooms.

It all started…well…when I was a baby, because I sucked my thumb. No matter what my parents tried, I just loved that darned thing. I still remember how it tasted or even smelt. (gross, I know, but if you were a long time sucker, you know what I’m talking about.)

By the time I was ten-ish(how old was I mom?) I had the worstest, most ugliest, overbite there ever was. It was atrocious.

When I was seven-ish I was swimming in this awesome pool in Shell, Mera. A small jungle town in Ecuador. The pool is just a big cement rectangle with fresh water coming in from a mountain on one side and swooping out into a small dam on the other. It had this awesome vertical metal slide at the deepest end of the pool and I decided going feet first, belly down was the best way to show off my awesome swimming skills. Unfortunately, in this instance, I also decided to lower my head to soon and broke off half of my front tooth on the metal slide and proceeded to freeze my nerves in the wicked cold mountain water.

I don’t remember where, but we had to get a fake for the other half of the tooth and the only guy that could do it couldn’t even make it look real. So I had basically a yellow Chiclet as one of my two front teeth until I was in 9th grade.

Hott, I know.

Nothing eventful happened again until we moved to a small town called Ambato. It’s gorgeous. Has great Colada Morada. If you aren’t from there you don’t know what it is and it’s not part of the story so I’m not going to describe it. Look it up. You’re online already anyways.

Anyways, we had a dentist – he was sort of legit – (this classification is important for future references) who checked out my mouth, told my parents I needed braces and set up an appointment. The braces couldn’t go on until he took out my leftover baby teeth apparently. So he had to pull two teeth. One was a baby tooth. One was permanent. I remember when he took my teeth out I was in so much pain. Finally, my parents realized the reason I was in more pain then normal was because the freaking tooth was PERMANENT! He was also the guy who added my braces…nothing exciting there other than my love affair with having gross greasy wax in my cheeks began. He said I’d only need braces for one year, maybe one and a half.

I had them for four and a half years.

SO one tooth down. For the rest of my life. I still have a little gap there.

I think we went to some dentist in the States next but he was all good so nothing worth mentioning there.

Upon our return to Ecuador we moved to the capital, Quito. My new dentist/orthodontist was an older gent. With glasses. And one fake eye….and only half his large intestines. He lost the other half to cancer. I don’t know why or how I knew this….I think his wife was his secretary (scandalous, I know!). Anyways. He trained in Germany apparently. We found this out after Mom discovered a maze of twists and turns and extra gadgetry in my mouth when he decided that tightening the wire was best done on the front of my mouth rather then in the back. Thus the eternal scarring I have on the inside of each cheek. But he was the last one I had braces with and so he was the one who took my brackets off. But he never took of the extra glue on my teeth.

He died soon after.

His patients were referred to a colleague of his so we set up an appointment for a cleaning and whatever needed to happen next after getting my braces off.

During my one…and only appointment (I think..I only remember one) he hit on me, popped all the blackheads on my face (I was a teenager, you had them too!) and didn’t even saw down the left over glue the other guy left.

My mom saw my puffed up lip and immediately asked for my file. I don’t think we ever returned.

Then I started having a tooth ache. Like really bad. By the time we got to it, we found out I needed a root canal.

In Ecuador root canal’s didn’t take one hour, they took three weeks.

So first I went to the dentist who saw down my tooth to a little pulp. Then he put on a temporary crown. Next I went to a specialist who pulled out the roots. She only gave me Novocaine so I felt everything. We were in a small room in her house and a Spanish soap opera was playing on the teli. I laid there, with my mouth propped open by a blue plastic gizmo and cried silent tears of pain. I still feel it sometimes.

She put the cap back on and I was off. It didn’t stick so I could pull it off whenever I wanted. It smelled really bad. It didn’t hurt though since I had no nerves left. A week or so later I went back to the first dentist and he put on my new permanent crown. It felt like it took up half my mouth…it looked like it too. This dentist was amazing though. He had just returned from a seminar in California where they learned new ways to make fake teeth look real and use some type of thing that makes the tooth last for a really long time. Since they were just learning it, I got my new front tooth, that looks super real, for free!

By the time I was 20 over half the teeth in my mouth had fillings, and most of those fillings are metal. Sexy, I know.

When I was 16 my wisdom teeth were thinking about making an appearance. The dentist said I should get them removed before they surface and mess up the four years of braces. So we went to a clinic where he started by taking one side out, and two weeks later, the other. Oh, did I not mention that he also only had Novocaine? Yeah, so I had my wisdom teeth pulled out of my face while I was quite lucid and felt everything. Numbing your gums means nothing when your teeth are being wretched from your mouth.

Mom said she could hear me yelling, ” Just pull them! Don’t stop, just pull them out!”

I remember kicking my leg up so high I almost knocked over all his tools..which wouldn’t have mattered because he was only using plyers.

At least I got to sit and watch soccer and eat ice cream. That was a perk. And because he gave me a big ol’ shot in my butt, I didn’t swell up even a little bit.

In 2008 I had to have another root canal. It took an hour. I didn’t feel a thing.

Oh, United States of America. I appreciate your need for malpractice insurance.

I’m almost done, I swear.

In 2009 the cap on my first root canal fell off. I lost it at a friends wedding while chewing gum…not at the wedding. But while we were getting pedicures the day before the wedding. SO instead of it costing me $50 to have them glue it back in, I had to spend $400 for them to make a new one.

Two weeks ago I went to have my teeth checked, and upon x-raying my whole mouth, I was told:

1. My root canal wasn’t done properly and if I don’t have it re-done in the next year or so it could get really badly infected.

2. The cap that the American doctor put on wasn’t actually made to fit so there has been a little gap between my crown and my gums allowing for anything to get in there and fester. No infection yet…but it’s imminent. Thanks. What was I saying about malpractice?

This last dentist is the best one I can remember. He actually told me everything he was doing, he made sure I was comfortable, and he even has a chair that massages your back. With a mouth like mine, I’m in for life, I might as well be comfortable.

This past January when the whole family was together my mom demanded (in her sweet little voice), “Kids, smile!”

As nothing funny had just been said you can imagine the awkward faces we made.

” There’s over $30,000 right there. At least you look good.”

Thanks Mom. Thanks Dad.

I do have a sexy smile. My teeth may not be genuine, but my smile is.

So that is my dental history for any who care.

Anything comprable?

Lovies.

Tags: dentist, ecuador, root canal
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