Teeth are a part of us that we rarely admit to the necessity nor importance of. We joke about how our dentists scorn over our inability to floss proper and how often some of us use them as a swiss army tool, especially in the sense of opening a bag.
We take quite a bit for granted with them. They allow us to eat, allow us to enjoy the crunch of our food, give us the ability to smile, and inspires the stranger of us to, say, create a series of monsters in a series of writing experiments that include winking eye mouths and the like. Second life was just fantastic for experimenting with potential stories. If I ever get around to writing those.
One thing that I only recently learned is that we feel our teeth. Both with them and just them being there. Just as you often do not realize you are breathing or continually feeling the air with every inch of your skin. We feel our teeth.
I am in the process of losing every single one of mine. Malnutrition played a part, but two key factors made sure I’d be sucking on my gums. First, I’ve had more bile cross over my teeth in the past decade than the average partier. They might puke out all that alcohol and stuff overnight. Maybe a little in the morning. I’ve had one too many drinks; it is almost a comforting type of upheaval. Relief eventually comes once your stomach is clear of the alcohol. Maybe a few dry heaves. It isn’t happening nonstop for three straight days, or until I could find someone to sell me pot in the dark times of being unable to buy it recreationally nor afford the medical card.
The second problem is that when that isn’t happening, my gums could often swell. ESPECIALLY once my teeth got especially bad. A chipped or shattered tooth is going to cut and scratch at the gum, however lightly. Leaving it irritated and eventually inflamed. My blood disease is one of those ‘when all your friends are jumping off a bridge, do a cannonball’ kind of guys. It’ll probably swell on its own merit at some point, but if my body is going to do something that would make someone without the blood disease swell, the oh so helpful HAE teaches it how to go all in. Just muscle in on that swelling. So, soon, you are unable to brush your teeth because touching them feels like needles are radiating out of your particularly bad teeth all the way down the line.
So, basically put, when my dentist X-rayed them and saw them he immediately said they all needed to come out. He said he could save four of them, the four front teeth on my bottom gums, but for a number of reasons I decided I would prefer to have them all taken out then just four survivors attempting to stand the test of time. I mostly figured since my teeth were regular members of the stomach acid onsen, it would be foolish to have my gums hold onto them from sentimentality.
Luckily, unlike almost my entire experience with Reno medical professionals, this dentist was professionally amazing. Excellent bedside manner, empathetic, meticulous. Probably due to the fact his office is located in Sparks. I say all this now because of the experience I am about to explain. This was not out of his abilities in the slightest. This was how bad my upper teeth were.
Initially the plan was to remove every single tooth in one go. This would not happen thanks to how difficult the procedure proved to be on me without knockout gas. The only complaint on that office is either they do not have knock out gas or my insurance will not cover it through them. So, instead, my only option was Novocaine. Their internet or Netflix also decided to be a pain at that exact moment, so I didn’t even have the comfort of the nature documentary that they decided to play. Not much of a problem, but a coincidental gripe.
My infected roots did NOT take to my doctor’s injection well. He started with the usual spots, but after a good long period of waiting and a couple of taps to my doomed teeth we found that I was still having a phenomenal amount of aching, throbbing, pain. So, with a comforting tone full of sincere apology, he jabbed the needle full of pain meds into the roots of the areas that gave me the most trouble. One of those pains that I can remember quite clearly. With an infected root, it seems to force every tender and infected nerve to be far more sensitive to every movement and textile change. Unlike with my other gums, I could distinctly pick out the gradual thickening from the point of the needle up to the shaft. I can remember feeling the slight curve of the tip and the slopes on either side, especially as it continued to gently push into my gums. I can even faintly remember the feeling, radiating textile feedback through the pins and needles of pain like a pinscreen, of the liquid escaping the needle point into my muscle.
He began pulling out teeth once it seemed to be numb. The problem was, even as he continued injecting me throughout the procedure, the infection fought the pain medication. So once he pushed his grips into my gum to get the first sunken root of my shattered wisdom tooth and began to pull, I continued to experience newer and grander levels of pain. The roots fought him, and I did my damnedest (and failed horribly) not to scream. I could feel every jerk and twist, as with many of these shattered teeth there wasn’t enough visible enamel to grip onto properly. My dentist managed to get a number of them out. The only thing keeping me in the seat was the lone fact that the pain would reach a peak where it was all I knew. My thoughts, my memories, my present became nothing but pain radiating from my tooth. A pain that locked my muscles and cold pulses radiating through my entire body with every pulse and every yank. Any lingering sense of consciousness and clarity focused entirely on not making matters worse by thrashing, on keeping my muscles locked in the position the pain initially secured them in.
Once the tooth was removed, however, the pain stopped IMMEDIATELY when it came to that socket, moving instead to the other teeth. It was a lighter pain, but the most noticeable change was that with each infected tooth removed I could feel my mind growing lighter. While I still have some in my bottom teeth, I feel less agitation and general madness without them. My mind is clearer than it has ever been, and every infected tooth removed added to that feeling. It might have been something I fooled myself into believing, but damn if didn't keep me in that dentist's chair.
The process of removing my upper teeth was long and arduous. Some teeth that I had thought healthy shattering under his grips as he tried to remove them or their neighbors. This I only know thanks to the many periods where the dentist backed off to give me a break from the pain while also trying to figure out ways to help me. It is impossible not to investigate. To stare in the mirror and lick at what will be your newly exposed upper gums. Expecting it to be all of them by the end of the day. Finding my canine was now a chasm of chipped enamel and roots is one of the many scenes from that day playing in my mind.
As the line of infected teeth that seemed to reach from my wisdom all the way to my two front teeth with all the ones in between. As my dentist put it, ‘a LOT of infected matter’ was there. Thanks to the difficulty, my dentist started from the back of the opposite side. The teeth opposite the infected ones actually took to the pain med injections well. Minus one or two, I hardly felt a single one being removed. One after the other I only heard the now familiar clink of my teeth as they were dropped into whatever container they were collecting them in.
I was then left with only four teeth in my upper gums. The problem was the pain was getting to be too much, and like a vindictive survivor, one of the front ones began to burn in agony even when not being touched. It was like all the pain from the previously removed teeth was being collected within the enamel of one of the few fully intact teeth (by appearances) in my upper gums. It seemed that was the worst in infection, or at least regarding painful reactions to it. The pain was so bad the dentist backed up, and serious consideration was taken into whether I should go to an oral surgeon instead, as they could knock me out.
That was well and good for the bottom row, but at that point, I had four agonizing teeth still in my head, dentures made for my gums without teeth, and nothing that could be done to fix that problem of them not fitting should I wait to have the teeth removed. I’ve been in the Reno medical system long enough to know something would hold me up. The dentist gave me time to think and my girlfriend, who had been sitting there in the room with me through this madness, went off to try and get me the prescription to some better pain killers that could be taken with the two that had had the max dosage in my gums.
So I was left alone for 10 or so minutes. To think and collect myself. I went back to the mirror to stare at my shattered smile. Four teeth in my upper gums, and a line of ugly looking death row teeth lining my bottom gums. Blood is pouring down my cheeks and soaking my shirt through the gauze and cotton I bit down on.
I want to preface what happened next with a little disclaimer. When I say I don't really cry anymore, it isn’t out of some machismo-driven need to appear masculine. No, I am not afraid to admit in the past through a dark childhood knocking off a large number of the ‘sad, tragic backstory’ checklist in addition to all I have written about so far. The well just ran dry long ago. Replaced with an empty, quiet brooding. With a feeling of suction in my tear ducts where nothing comes out but dust. Like that hollow void you feel when your body is dying for water, or your body aches to vomit. I have tried in many of my darker depressive episodes in hopes of relief, only just to sit there brooding.
I say all of this because as I sat there in throbbing pain through pain meds, mildly high from something I was given in hopes to help but didn’t do much, staring at the blood accented image of me smiling with four teeth… I remembered the nightmares I had of my teeth falling out, of me being the stereotypical hillbilly, playing a honky-tonk keyboard as I snicker with eight teeth in my head. I wanted to wake up; I wanted this particular nightmare to be over. It didn’t help. Tears actually began to flow as I sat in self pity once I was momentarily left alone. The idea I wouldn’t be able to have my dentures in while havbing all but four of those teeth removed was a haunting enough to make tears flow and sobs croak for a few moments. Not like my eyes hadn’t already been watering from the pain, but these were actual tears. The type that makes your eyes feel warm and the air taste salty.
I challenge anyone else not to given the situation. Cursing a biological blood disorder without a face nor voice to challenge your rage. Just an endless series of roadblocks that have culminated in a smile where the upper half is replaced with a void. It was a new level of rock-bottom when I had already thought I had hit that point countless times before, each seeming darker and deeper a pit than the last. Funny enough, this thought is what snapped me out of it. It tends to. It might be worse, but a pit is still a pit. I made my way out of this emotional situation plenty of times before. I could do it again.I would do it again. Never has been an option to give up before, so no sense letting it start being one just because I am experiencing the waking version of a reoccuring nightmare shared by many.
We can’t be letting those nightmares win, after all. It would be terribly unbecoming for myself and annoyingly beneficial to those nightmares.
So, instead, I began to psyche myself up. Gave myself one hell of a pep talk before asking the doctor to remove the final four. The bottoms would be left to an oral surgeon. I gripped the chair like I was being electrocuted, I screamed out my hatred of reality, and I could feel my face soaking itself with sweat, tears, and blood. I did it, though. I have been through all kinds of pain, and NOTHING yet has matched that experience, but I did it. I fucking had those four teeth ripped out of my head. Dentures placed in, and I went off on the process to heal and try getting in contact with my oral surgeon.
While I have begun to get used to a number of the problems caused by my new dentures, it is still merely becoming accustomed to the madness. To help with their healing, as I was somewhat paranoid about dry sockets, I continued to line my dentures with gauze (which I would replace daily) for longer than probably needed. This had the unfortunate effect of causing my smile to have a bit more gum.
Beyond that, eating was, of course, a problem. It continued to be on an off for at least a month, but in the beginning, I was stuck on a diet of miso soup and liquids. Even the tiniest bit of pressure caused an horrific pins and needle effect. Nowhere near the agony of having an infected tooth, but it clouded the taste of anything that required mouth movement for a month. Luckily, I am rather good at making frozen fruit smoothies and miso soup.
Not that eating has gotten much better. The adhesives tend to begin wearing off due to the hot liquid from coffees and soup brothers, leading to the occasional moment where I have to struggle to keep my dentures balanced by pressure and the few remaining bits of adhesive at something such as an important dinner or meeting. I have since learned to keep a small bottle of the stuff in my backpack, but it is still a problem I didn’t expect to have in this half of my life. Nor the discomforts of shoving the things onto my gums every morning. Such as the fact the, even after it has been adjusted to fit me, the back portion of the dentures will continue to try and ignite my gag reflex. That lovely bit will last through the morning.
Psychologically, having to remove them every night was a blow that took a bit for me to get over. Luckily, repetition makes anything more natural with time. Beatings like this, especially with moral support from loved ones and friends, have become easier to recover from without as much bruising. Keeping my mind busy through the continued focus on and develop my skills in drawing, piano playing, and writing among other hobbies; Truly helped in keeping myself focused.
Still, it does not help my insomnia any to lay in bed with my tongue dragging along the rounded craters that had once been my teeth. Thanks to the upper teeth taking near eight years to crumble to the point they were, I had become rather used to racing my teeth with my tongue. An admittedly obsessive habit derived from a fear that a new crack might have appeared or that the crunch from my food MIGHT have been yet another piece chipping away. Now that same obsessive hunt for structural failure now is left combing naked gums along my upper jaw. While almost affectionately tracing the remaining bottom teeth.
I will get to why I still have my bottom teeth even though I SHOULD have had them removed by an oral surgeon by now, but that is a matter for another article. Their continued presence in my mouth is equal parts upsetting and relieving. The constant need to brush them during my nightly ritual of removing my teeth and placing them into a glass, a personally humiliating ritual, has lead to a continued hint of bitterness and resentment towards both my last remaining teeth scheduled for death row and the series of people subject to my next article on my continued attempts to seek treatment for my blood disease and all the issues that have come from it. Especially given at least one of these teeth are noticeably infected as well.
My procedure happened on March 23rd, 2018. I finally got around to finishing this article May 27th, 2018. I STILL have not been able to get my bottom teeth ripped out thanks to a series of events involving the insurance company shuffle, a referral to the oral surgeon that I had to play phone tag with two dental offices and an insurance office to try and clear up, the medical system making it so I STILL can not get a new prescription for the medication for my blood disease that makes me somewhat comfortable to do this procedure (because otherwise it could kill me from my throat swelling), my gastrointestinal system swelling and the emergency room refusing to admit it was the blood disease (and still refusing to) it was my blood disease and not some ‘unspecified vomiting episode’, being referred to a allergy doctor in Henderson (near Vegas for those who do not know. Ya know, 8 hours drive from my town on a good day) saying that is the only on in the entire Nevada area.
I rant about all this and title the article as I did with the intent of making one maddening realization I had clear about the phrase “Like Pulling Teeth.” Now that my teeth have been pulled from my head in by far one of the worst 4 (or so) hours of my life, I can say that the paragraph above (which I undoubtedly of forgotten to include a few items) and all the nightmarish treatment I have dealt with and outlines in my previous articles make the depressibe truth that my teeth being yanked out of me, in terms of the administration and doctor along with ACTUALLY GETTING THAT PART OF THE PROCEDURE DONE, was one of the easier things I have had done. I didn’t need to play the most frustrating games of phone tag; I didn’t need to argue with the dentist in the slightest about the level of damage to my teeth.
If only more of my procedures had been like pulling teeth.