I don’t have great teeth, nor have I taken as good a care of my teeth as I should have. My mother has spent plenty of money on my dental care and I did not appreciate it or take advantage of being a minor under her insurance as I should have and now that I have to pay for my own dental work I am acutely aware of the benefits to good oral hygiene.
Unfortunately my smile has had to pay the price as well!
How I lost my front tooth in the first place!
I had a couple root canals during high school and then while in living in Russia a big chunk of my tooth fell out, literally fell out of my mouth! I immediately made a dentist appointment with the help of fluent Russian speakers. Gold teeth are common in Russia and it was suggested I get a shiny new replacement, in retrospect maybe I should have since the crown I had for 5 years started to wiggle and had to be sawed out of my mouth by a dentist in Utah , literally. Once the crown from Russia was out of my mouth it was apparent that enough of my tooth was missing/infected that the only option left was an implant tooth.
The decision to finally spend $3,000 on ONE TOOTH
I've been debating for some time now on whether or not I want to get a permanent tooth put it but it costs ~$3000 dollars and I know in other countries it will be so much cheaper. I had ultimately decided to take the risk and wait, then through a series of events the universe let me know this was NOT my wisest decision so I have started the process to get a permanent tooth.
What it's like to get a titanium bar insterted in your jaw
My dentist and I have a mutual friend so I trust him and we joke back and forth so I decided I wanted to document the experience just a little. I mean after all that $3000 dollars could have gotten extremely far in traveling so I figure I should at least get a few photos out of it.
It turned out to be quite a painful process one that ended in tears and a few prescriptions. They first took out what was remaining of the root of my tooth as the doctor said to me, "you may hear/feel some cracking... but that's okay." Ummmm.... sure, I'm okay with that?
Then as he pulls out pieces of the root as well as one large bloody chunk (I sorta wish I'd taken a picture of that. haha) then the dentist tells me I can see the very deep hole now leading to my jaw bone, sure, why not I love seeing my bone... right? That is when I snapped this photo waiting for even more anesthesia shots to kick in for the next step. Can you see where my tooth used to be?
The next step: Inserting a titanium rod about an inch long into the space where my tooth used to be and then screw it (literally screw it) into my jaw. NOW I have to wait 4-6 months for the titanium to fuse to my bone... then its off to travel the world. So that is my time frame, 4-6 months.
things that need to happen before I leave this life for the life of an expat:
1: Sell my condo- The first buyer for my condo backed out and luckily I got a new offer just 2 days after so now I am back to just waiting.
2: Finish my degree- I'm waiting for my final grade from statistics and then finishing my thesis, then I'm done.
3: Get laid of work- The company I work for got bought out & we are expecting to be laid off when our department is no longer needed.
4: Get a permanent front tooth- It won't be for Christmas per se, but I've started the process at least.
5: get on a plane!
It's good that you started early. You purposely timed it for Christmas, huh? Documenting the whole process would give you relief. It's like seeing your achievements on and on... :)
Posted by: Katia Craig | December 23, 2011 at 01:39 PM
Thank you Katia, I wish it weren't such a long process but whatever it takes to not have to remember to pack my tooth overseas! haha
Posted by: Heather | December 27, 2011 at 09:55 AM