I picked up my new teeth this morning. It's been a long few weeks with a clunky, dull chunk of temporary plastic strung like a crooked gate across my mouth. I've not been allowed to bite since mid-January.
The temps also gave me a part-time whistle accompanied by a full-time lisp. All my S's flirted with H's. I was worried it might be permanent.
If you decide to have your front teeth filed down and covered with veneers, do the research after they've already done the filing. Otherwise, you'll read a thousand testimonials by people who developed lisps and whistles and the unsavory habit of spitting when they talk. And you might decide to keep your original equipment.
In the interest of maximum self-improvement, I opted for in-office whitening for the rest of my teeth before we chose the color for the new ones. I was also glad I didn't practice due diligence for this procedure until after it was over.
Instead, later that afternoon I nervously researched "crippling shooting pains after teeth whitening" and found all the information I needed. Like the scientific name for the pain, which is "Zingers." Also that people who experience them are "probably not good candidates for whitening." This is why online medical research isn't all that helpful. Under these guidelines, how can I know whether I'm a good candidate or not until I've been Zinged?
It's a disconcerting thing when you're in the chair and your tongue discovers what your brain already fears--that the actors in the leading roles of your smile have all been reduced to stubs. They're wise enough not to hand you a mirror at that point, but they don't need to. By the time you're 50, you've seen enough Halloween costumes and backwater Floridians to know exactly what that must look like.
Suddenly your dentist becomes a god. And your fate is in his hands.
Luckily, it appears that mine turned out to know what he was doing. I'm new and improved!
But I'll miss my old teeth a little. They were honest. They were experienced. They knew their way around the alphabet, maneuvering even the trickiest consonants with ease. They were with me for my first kiss, and they've participated in every smile (and cheeseburger) since.
I'm not dumb enough to think that newer is always better. And I don't want the rest of my body to get any ideas about undergoing similar updates. But when another of my teeth painfully announced its retirement last month, I decided maybe it was time to spring for a matched set. I've always wanted one, and I somehow forgot to get braces back when all my friends thought it was the rage.
Anyway, I'm happy looking like my only-slightly-less-old self. As a show of good faith, I'm keeping my gray hair.