mouth math

2 new crowns = 1 new smile 😁

When my new dentist asked me, Do you like your teeth?, the only thing I could honestly answer was, It's complicated.   

I did (do) like how my teeth are strong and healthy and easy to take care of, all that is true.  But did I like the way my teeth looked?  I can honestly say it has been a very long time since that was true, before today.   When I was an infant, I had really high fevers and the hospital ER gave me tetracycline.  At the time, it wasn't known that this strong antibiotic destroyed the enamel on developing teeth, so many of my secondary teeth came in without enamel.  Fortunately not all of them!  My 2 front incisors on top and the 4 on the bottom had no enamel at all. My canines have enamel except for the very tip, which just makes them look like incisors.  My 6-year molars had no enamel but they were removed when I needed room in my mouth for braces.  

To say I was self-conscious about my teeth is a gross understatement.  Every year the school nurse would send home nasty notes to my mother about how decayed my teeth were, even though there was a note in my file explaining they were not decayed at all.  Finally, in second grade, I got a set of caps on my front teeth and I was so happy to not have little brown teeth anymore!  But the caps were literally all wrong for me.  They were wildly different in color from my own teeth and they were much too big, giving me buck teeth.  I had those until junior high when they were replaced with some kind of acrylic coating on the teeth.  This looked fine, great actually, for a few months, but then they absorbed stains from everything, and back then I was drinking both tea and coffee every single day!  Fast forward to my last year of college, and I got my first set of real crowns, which were OK but also not the right shape or color for my mouth.  Just a few years later, I was working and making some money so I got another set of crowns, and these were much better, but still slightly too big and obviously fake-looking. 

All this is why I rarely smile for photos while showing my teeth! 

Today's transformation involved some extra running around because at first when the teeth came back from the shade lab, they were too dark.  It was kind of a close call.  I liked the way they looked when I was lying back in the dentist's chair, but before I let them cement them in place, I said, "Wait, I want to look at them sitting up," and then I took a selfie. It was really obvious that the crowns were much too gray.  Tiny changes in color can make a huge difference!  So then I went from the dentist's office back to the shade lab for adjustments, and within an hour I was back at the dentist, getting them glued in.   

I teared up when everything was done.  I can't remember ever looking at my smile and thinking, all of those teeth are real teeth.  Even when I was tiny, my teeth looked bad! Over the years, I've had the experience of thinking my teeth looked pretty good, but knowing all along the phrase considering I have crowns on my two front teeth should be included.  So now I think, if I smile, people won't look at me and wonder why my front teeth are fake.  (I'm also pretty sure very few people ever gave my teeth a second look or even a single thought, but when you're self-conscious about something, it's hard to break old habits.) They look like real teeth.  

I've been going to this dental practice for about twenty years, and the entire staff was blown away and so happy for me, it was awesome.  The only bummer was we couldn't hug because of COVID-19, but it was still a really great moment.  I was really on the fence about replacing the old ones, but my gums had receded a bit and there was that black line there and it just didn't look good.  The old crowns were like 30 years old and it was time for them to go, but the more frugal part of me kept thinking, they're working just fine, they don't look that bad, just let it go.  DH encouraged me to do it when I was waffling over the cost (close to $1100.)  Apparently the recent run up in the stock market has been good for our portfolio.  

Small change.  Much bigger psychological impact than I was anticipating, and really welcome lift during this depressing time. 😁 Really wish my Mom were here to see them, she would have loved them, too.