The Year of the Tooth

I just returned from the dentist, or more specifically, the periodontist. You’re probably wondering what that is. Translation: Cosmetic dentist.

Here’s the background. A small chunk of tooth is missing from the bottom of my left front tooth. Of course I notice it, but so does everyone else.

I’ve had it bonded three times, two of those times in the past six months. I have a hazy memory of breaking the tooth over two decades ago after jumping off a ladder and hitting my jaw against my knee. I have an even hazier memory of having it repaired at the dentist’s. I think I was eight or nine.

I had forgotten about it, surprising, since I like to think I have a razor sharp memory. It just didn’t seem significant to me at the time, breaking my tooth, in fact if I remember anything, it was that I was so proud of jumping the greatest number of ladder rungs to the ground of any of my friends. All kids get their teeth broken.

I started to dislike my front teeth by the time I reached my mid-twenties, only because a microscopic sized gap between them was increasing the older I got. I suspected the gap had to do with my nail biting habit that involved a repetitive rubbing motion of my thumbnail against my left front tooth, followed by nibbling, that detached the unwanted portion of thumbnail. I must have done it thousands of times. Granted, I wasn’t a voracious nail biter. For the most part, I did it when I was under stress, and never enough that it perverted the shape of my nails. It did pervert that one tooth.

Slowly, over time, the gap widened and the left tooth rotated slightly inward. I started to notice hairline fractures in the enamel. I pressed myself to give up the nail biting, and while I was successful for weeks at a time, I returned time and again to my nasty habit (I’ll have you know I haven’t bitten them since March). I assumed my teeth would hold up for time immemorial. They didn’t.

When I lazily saddled up to the bathroom mirror last March, just shy of one of my thirtysomething birthdays, I was shocked when faced with my own reflection: a hole in my tooth! I panicked, I scurried, I sobbed. I called my husband. “Don’t worry,” he said. “They can fix that.” I was pacified by his assurance. (And after watching several episodes of Extreme Makeover, I know for certain it really can be much worse, I could look like Mr. Ed, or better yet, Nanny McPhee).

I have good teeth otherwise. Dentists have always complimented me on my at-home dental hygiene; I floss everyday, and brush like it’s a religion. I suppose in some way it makes up for the damage I’ve done to them in biting my nails all those years. Did I mention I also have TMJ, also know as temporomandibular joint disorder? What this means it that I have a misaligned jaw, that I can’t eat a whole apple or sing without my jaw popping, my cheek and jaw muscles straining and sore. Nail biting. Gotta love it. Guess it’s better than smoking. Or doing crack cocaine. Or living on a diet of fried Twinkies.

So, long story short, I went to the dentist, my quirky, big-mouthed New York City dentist, aptly called Dr. Goldental pronounced “gold-en-thal.” She examined, she pondered, but true to form, she remained chatty and optimistic. “Oh, this isn’t a problem. I can bond it.” For those of you who don’t know it, bonding material is made of composite resin; it goes on wet and dries hard so that it resembles tooth enamel. The dentist shaped and molded the material over the hole in my front tooth, and when it was finished, I couldn’t tell my good tooth from the broken one.

Sadly, while eating a chicken wrap at the Mall in May, the resin fell out and I swallowed it. Since we had moved farther away from the city in March, I choose to change dentists to one in central New Jersey, at a clinic called the Smile Center (auspicious, right?), run by a non-nonsense bordering on bitchy, although competent, Russian. She filled in the hole, fusing the bonding material over a greater swatch of the upper tooth, in hopes that would help to keep the patch in place over time. She did a great job, albeit the color of the resin was a tiny bit darker than the color of my teeth, so upon close observation, it appeared stained. A small price to pay I figure, we had good insurance. I was just glad to get it fixed. I was also glad that the dentist took the time to explain to me that it was nearly impossible to keep a bond on the lower tooth in. She recommended that ultimately, I would instead need veneers, rather porcelain overlays.

At least this time I expected it to fall out. We ate crab legs on Tuesday night, and I greedily gnawed on the arachnid’s limbs, dipping the meat in butter. In my frenzy, I must have jimmied the bond out of place. It was probably already on its way out. The tooth felt off-kilter by the time I got home Tuesday night, and by Wednesday morning, I had devoured the bond bit with my bowl of cereal. So, again, I look more like Alfalfa than I do myself.

So I went to the periodontist today. Dr. C, a jovial guy. He says I can’t have veneers, that because of the damage done to my tooth in childhood, too much of the tooth is missing. I’m going to get a crown put in; I made the appointment for next month. I’ll have to make do with the broken tooth until them.