No more dentist

For the last 4 months I have been making very regular trips to the dentist. At first it was just a checkup, then I was told my roots were abnormally short and my gums were receding. And if the situation was to get any worse, then all my teeth would fall out. Eeekk! And I'm only 26.

My previous dentist in Australia, told me that my gums were receding and blamed it on my brushing technique (Fact: if your dentist tells you this, he is full of sh**. I have found out that it is virtually impossible to apply sufficient pressure to your teeth or gums with a standard manual or electric toothbrush, to cause this kind of damage). My new dentist said it was due to grinding my teeth and/or clenching my jaw during sleep, effecting excess pressure on the roots and gums. Apparently lots of people do this without being aware of it, especially when they are stressed, and it is particularly a problem if you have a misaligned bite.

But I have a great dentist, and he plotted a course for preventing further damage to my roots, which included removing my wisdom teeth (to reduce the amount of pressure I was able to create by clenching my jaw) and fitting a mouth guard to further reduce any pressure created by clenching teeth or jaw. Ultimately he wanted to give me orthodontics to correct my bite, but I am reluctant to wear braces again, having had them only 10 years ago. Luckily my dentist recognises that people don't want to spend $3000 for orthodontics, when they've had it all done before, even if it was done badly, and probably caused a lot of the damage I am now experiencing.

So my diary was filled with numerous dentist appointments: cleaning, picking up meds for tooth extraction, wisdom teeth extraction, removal of stitches and checkup on healing from wisdom teeth extraction, taking casts of my teeth for mouth guard, and finally (this morning's appointment) fitting of the mouth guard. Tonight I get to sleep with some highly attractive dental accessories! Hooray!