Bite Me

So I’m lying in yet another dentist loungy chair. Except I’m not in my dentist’s office. No, I’m feeling out the orthodontist my dentist referred me to. That’s a lot of ists. Anyway, I knew from the time I was about 13 that I needed braces. So did my sister. The rub, as Hamlet would say, was money. My mom couldn’t afford two sets of braces cause that was money out of pocket. There was no insurance help with that. And there still really isn’t. My dental covers orthodintics for a kid…and being one at heart seemingly isn’t good enough. Course in retrospect, if someone would get their collective heads out of their ass, they would see braces as a means of preventative care. I’m a good example.

Let me splain you this:

I hardly smile. Why? Because of my fangs. You think I use the term fangs in the vein of something other than serious. I’m not. Let’s have a look at a picture I actually don’t mind posting for all the world to see, mostly because my fangs aren’t as pronounced.

See on the left, that’s the more in your face one. My mouth is small, my teeth are what they are and as a result, if they’re not jammed together, they’re making it easier for me to play vampire at halloween. The bottom row showcases the lack of room even more. Hence why I don’t smile often and when I do, it’s by accident. It makes keeping my chompers clean a bitch, cavities and fillings an inevitability. Add in 4 wisdom teeth that tried and failed to come in [muwha, I sure showed them!]. When Happy To Give Shots said root canal…was I all that surprised? No, not really. I figure not bad for a problem that’s been ongoing for about 11 years now. And if something isn’t done, Happy To Give Shots will be saying Root Canal more than once. But according to father and son orthodontists, I have an interesting bite. ‘Oh?’ says I. And what was supposed to be a 30 min consult turned into an hour as they started to ponder a plan of action while learning me some basics of how an ideal mouth works.

A normal bite is uniform, meaning that the pressure applied to each tooth is supposed to be the same when you’re biting. My back teeth exhibit wear that suggests all that pressure is on the back teeth in conjuction to the front being slightly open when I do bite. And my teeth not lining up correctly was a given since things aren’t straight, I figured the alignment was off too. Now while the geek in me appreaciates the ‘Ooooo, challenge’ gleam in their eyes, [cause getting them straight isn’t a problem, it’s getting my mouth close to ‘normal’ as possible that is] this is my mouth we’re talking about. My mouth and it being in some fraction of pain for fractions of a time. Most people worry about the pain that will be done to their wallets…that’s secondary. What other reason is Ben & Jerry’s in existance for anyway except to help it survive bill payment time.

My dentist says I have the prettiest blue eyes and let’s meet up for a root canal. My orthodontist says I have an interesting bite, let’s extract teeth, put on braces for 24 months and slap on a retainer. At least I can play the optimist [which makes me feel all sorts of tainted] here and see this as a means to really weed out the shallow people and be free of them for at least 24 months.