My UK dentist looks about twelve years old and wears Keds, but she says my teeth are perfect.
Qualified perfection, as I live in a land renowned for poor dental hygiene, but still. I’m nearly forty, drink coffee, and gobble jellybeans, but my gums are pink and healthy. I have no cavities, no loose crowns, no problems whatsoever. Astonishing!
This state of affairs was deliberate. My baby teeth were rotten, yellow, jagged. Throughout my childhood I endured daily treatments, countless fillings and caps. I had six root canals before my seventh birthday, and all but three of my teeth were extracted under anesthetic…. and that doesn’t even take us up to the era when my jaw was found to be riddled with tumors.
Have you ever required dental surgery so sensitive you woke in the intensive care ward of a teaching hospital? I have.
How my parents paid for these procedures without adequate insurance is a profound mystery – but they did it. My new teeth were coaxed and cajoled by a team of experts spanning three counties over two long decades.
I dutifully scrubbed and brushed and flossed and dared dream big dreams – that one day, perchance, I could eat an apple!
Thank you to my parents, working endlessly long hours to pay the bills. Thank you, childhood dentist, for the advice and intervention that saved my teeth. Fervent thanks to the oral surgeon for the delicate repairs to my jaw, and the larger diagnosis of the genetic disorder.
In the United States teeth are the most obvious marker of social class. Before I was old enough to understand, my family and physicians decided I was not the girl with a dirty mouth.
Later I moved to a country where even the movie stars have crooked smiles, but learned along the way that the question is not fundamentally about aesthetics. My UK dentist is amazed by my teeth because they are strong.
It was worth the hassle (and yes I still floss).