Tales from the dentist’s chair

Sink your teeth into Aunty's close encounters of the dental kind.

FIFTEEN years ago, I made an investment, one of my best ever. I am still reaping the benefits and hopefully, will continue to do so for years to come.

What I invested in were my teeth. I spent thousands of ringgit to change all the dental amalgam, commonly referred to as silver fillings, to white porcelain ones.

It took many visits and hours of staring at the ceiling from the dentist's chair while keeping my mouth open, trying not to get frozen jaw. It was uncomfortable, tiring and yes, expensive. But it was totally worth it.

For my generation, as kids we visited the dentist to fill cavities or to pull out a tooth. And boy, did I have lots of the former. By the time I was 20, half my teeth had fillings.

Every now and then, the fillings would loosen or fall out and had to be refilled, which made the holes bigger and bigger. I had more filling than enamel in quite a few teeth.

Not only that, laughing heartily with mouth wide open wasn't recommended as rows of dark fillings didn't make a pretty sight.

Over time, the amalgam also stained the enamel which led to the annoying and wrong presumption that I smoked.

So back in 1998, I asked my dentist, Dr Foo, to fix up my teeth.

Thus, began the many visits over a few months to replace the silver fillings and to crown three of my front incisors.

Dr Foo's fabulous dental work has held up since; I needed only a few minor repairs for a chipped tooth or cracked filling over the years.

But as much as I like my dentist, I don't look forward to seeing him.

He and his partner, Dr Loo, run a very technologically advanced clinic but the high-pitch drill and the fear of pain and discomfort remain. So I put off seeing him for as long as possible.

But after more than a year since my last visit, I finally had my appointment with him last Saturday.

These days, my concerns are about yellowing enamel, receding gums and gappy teeth.

Mind you, conversations with the dentist can be quite difficult for obvious reasons.

So I pose my questions quickly before he tells me to open wide and after he tells me to rinse.

Dr Foo says the yellowing is a natural process. He can whiten my natural teeth but then they may be so lightened that they won't match my porcelain crowns any more. Cost of replacing a crown? RM1,000 plus.

I nearly choked on the saliva ejector tube! That's double what I paid 15 years ago.

As for the gaps that trap bits of food, he tells me it's because my gums are receding.

It's also part of ageing and nothing can be done about that. Not only that, receding gums cause buckles to form at the base of teeth that expose more enamel.

That's why they call older people "long in the tooth" because we really are! And that's also why we love toothpicks. I never leave home without my stash of individually wrapped mint-tipped toothpicks in my lipstick case, taken from classy Chinese restaurants.

Of late, this aunty has also started making old people noises: sucking at my teeth to try to dislodge the food particles that toothpicks can't reach.

Flossing would do the trick but it's gross to floss in public.

I suppose making sucking noises is also gross so I should remember to suck quietly.

For young people, their dental issues are different.

Thanks to our national fluoridation programme that started in 1972 (Johor was even earlier, in 1966), tooth decay has been drastically reduced.

Because of that, lots of young people like my children, don't even have a single tooth cavity.

Fluoridation – possibly one of the most under-appreciated and unknown government programmes we have – also changed our dentists' practice from largely doing fillings to scaling and cleaning and orthodontic work.

Indeed, while I didn't pay for fillings, I had to pay for expensive braces for all three kids.

In an era less affluent and less fixated on aesthetics, my parents didn't pay to fix my rabbity front teeth, my crooked lower ones or my sister's overbite.

But my husband and I, typical of our generation, did pay to fix our oldest child's overlapping teeth, our second girl's buck teeth, and our son's irregular lower teeth and an overlong front incisor.

Long after their braces were removed, they continue to wear their retainers, something they will have to do for years to come if they want to keep their teeth nice and straight.

They'd better, considering my investment in all three mouths!

Whether we like it or not, giving our offspring confidence-boosting Hollywood-worthy teeth has become part and parcel of modern child-raising.

But let's not forget to give them the right upbringing and values, too.

As a US high school principal opined, too many of today's kids have straight teeth and crooked morals. Chew on that.

> As a postscript, the writer would like to borrow this quote to remind everyone that "life is short, so smile while you still have teeth!" Send feedback to junewong@thestar.com.my

Read More @ Source

More » Bonology.com | Pakatan Rakyat (PR) | Sociopolitics Plus | 大马社会政治