I'm having my teeth fixed, oh my...

For years I've had this dream over and over again that my teeth suddenly become loose and eventually fall out. It's the scariest thing. I've mentioned this dream to friends and I've found a few who have actually had the same reoccurring dream. Isn't that weird? Maybe it's a bird of a feather thing.

In real life I had an accident about 20 years ago that left me without my top front teeth and a bridge that goes from one end of my smile to the other. At first I was happy with the bridge, mostly just happy to have gotten through all the dental work and have teeth again. Over time I grew to not be so happy about it. During a regular visit with my dentist about a year ago I found myself casually asking what could be done to improve the way the bridge looks. He said something about how complicated it would be to mess with but he offered to talk to a periodontist friend and get his opinion.

I was soon visiting the periodontist and then on to an orthodontist. The consensus was that it would indeed be complicated to fix and involve work from each flavor of dentist, take a long time and cost lots of money. So maybe it's not too bad just the way it is I told myself for about another year.

Then there I was a year or so later reluctantly lying in the dentist chair waiting to have my tooth pulled. Dr. Root (that is his real name) shows up and says, "you're not too sure about this are you?" "NO!" I say. He goes on to suggest a "quick fix" alternative that doesn't involve pulling teeth or getting braces. This is after I've had the gas they give you at the dentist office. I was off in la-la land wondering about what snow skiing was really like while staring at the poster of a snowy mountain on the ceiling of his office. "So you can fix this without the braces?" I ask. "Why am I here?" Off comes the gas mask as he notes that it seems a bit premature to pull my tooth. He tells me if it were his mouth he'd go ahead and get the braces and get it fixed the right way and he leaves to visit another patient. In comes the assistant to make a mold of my mouth so that we can think about it for a while. About that time I came down off the mountain and realized I just blew the chance to get this process started. If I leave now I will probably never do it. "Get him back in here, I'm ready to do it." I tell the assistant.

So there you have it. I had the tooth pulled and I'm waiting for a couple of weeks to get my braces. The official story I'm telling people is that I had my tooth knocked out in a fight. It's fun to see the reaction.

Update: It's been a great summer. The kids are back in school so I have time to update the site. I got my braces on just before we left for our vacation. They were pretty painful for the first few days but soon it wasn't bad. We packed up for our vacation and as we drove off into the sunset I noticed one of the brackets of the braces was broken. I knew there was no way I was going to find an orthodontist out in Big Bend. Sure enough, everyone I asked with braces in Big Bend sees an orthodontist in Mexico. Not something I'm willing to try. I've been to see my orthodontist since I've been back and they were able to fix it in no time. So far so good.

My dentist is Jim Root DDS. He can be contacted at (512) 454-5153.
Orthodontist is Ronald Barnett C DDS. (512) 343-0062
Periodontist is Daniel O'Dell S DDS. (512) 346-6097