Unbecoming Levity

Just Call Me Jaws

Abacquer — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 14:46:00 -0400

Here's an x-ray I had done while I was at the dentist's office awhile back. As you can see all of the molars on my lower jaw are gone, leaving only the two wisdom teeth in the back, whereas every tooth in my mouth except the frontmost has fillings. The bright white spots are fillings folks.

The black space between two of the front teeth on the top there is where an old filling fell out and the tooth and it's neighbor are rotting away. The nurse said this spot (and a couple others) were a likely cause of my recent spate of illnesses.

They don't take tooth xrays like they used to. When I was younger you would hold a flat piece of plastic between your teeth, and on the inside edge would be attached a perpendicular piece of x-ray film encased in plastic. Now they have you stand up inside a machine where a pair of x-ray emitters revolve around your head and take a complete image of your jaw.

One thing to note about the above image is that it is mirrored. Although that dark space on the top front appears to be on the right side, it is actually on the left side.

Last Look

Abacquer — Tue, 08 May 2007 17:26:00 -0400

Here's the last picture of me with my original teeth, taken last night.

The New Me

Abacquer — Tue, 08 May 2007 17:26:00 -0400

Well sort of, the dentures still need a lot of adjstment. That will get taken care of in the next few visits to the dentist. Right now the uppers are falling out of my head making it very difficult to eat. Going to need fixodent I think.

Bloody Mess

Abacquer — Tue, 08 May 2007 17:26:00 -0400

When I came to enough to take my picture, my mouth was crammed with gauze and there was a lot of bleeding, but I was just happy the surgery was over.

Upper Dentures

Abacquer — Tue, 08 May 2007 17:26:00 -0400

Picked these up on Monday.

Lower Dentures

Abacquer — Tue, 08 May 2007 17:26:00 -0400

See how there is one extra tooth in the right side? That's because I'm keeping an odd number of teeth in the front, 7 to be exact. They aren't easy to see, but there are two metal wires on the front of partial that anchor it to my front teeth.

Gruesome Teeth

Abacquer — Tue, 08 May 2007 17:26:00 -0400

I apologize for these pictures but I feel a need to document what used to be in my head that was causing me so much pain and making me so sick all the time. Please feel free to skip the next two pictures if you don't want to see this.

The Old Lowers

Abacquer — Tue, 08 May 2007 17:26:00 -0400

On the bottom jaw, the four teeth with fillings in them were removed. The two teeth at the back (which were wisdom teeth, one of which was missing a chunk), and the each rearmost of the front teeth on the left and right.

The wisdom tooth that appears on the left in this picture is actuall missing a big chunk of the tooth. It fell out years ago, a big V-shaped section which extended below the gumline. Nonethless this is the only tooth I was able to chew on.

WARNING: the next picture is particularly gruesome.

Disaster Area

Abacquer — Tue, 08 May 2007 17:26:00 -0400

As you can see, this is why my uppers had to go. The only option for all of them was to grind them down and cap them. The one nice looking tooth was in fact alredy a cap. There are 5 teeth in this image which are missing pieces, some of them extremely large piecies showing the layers of enamel, dentin and whatever else underneath the tooth. My uppers are the primary reason why I have been in pain every day for the last 10 years.

Efferdent