Dental Disaster

Posted on September 12, 2002 in Dentition

Two nights ago, I bit into a piece of dried pineapple and felt something hard in the middle. I pulled the wad out and extracted the temporary crown that has been squatting on my lower left jaw while we wait for fresh insurance coverage after the New Year. I put it back. A few minutes later, the damn thing found its way back into my chaw. This time the crown broke into two pieces. One comprised two of the sides and the other included the other two and the top. They fit together neatly. I slipped them back into place and called my dentist the next morning.

I arranged an appointment for 9 a.m. Just before I left, I figured that I should have a quick snack. Being a diabetic, I wanted to be sure that I kept to my dining schedule, especially before any kind of operation. I poured the chocolate coated soy nuts into the right side of my mouth. Somehow, the smaller and more delicate of the two pieces migrated over there and broke in two. I was not happy. I put the three pieces into an empty pill bottle and took them with me in the vain hope that they might still be salvaged.

The last time I had this crown worked on, the dental tech took a piece of putty and molded it into a tooth using the calcified stump as her core. She pinched and made me bite down on it until it grew hard. Then she trimmed away the rough edges, cut it down to the level of my other teeth, cut, and filed it into a reasonable facsimile of a tooth. She didn’t take any impressions, however, which surprised me.

That would have saved me some trouble today. The other dental tech created her temps using a different style. She made an impression using a tin crown and then made the new cap in the backroom somewhere. If the other tech had done an impression, I could have been out in minutes. This visit took an embarassing hour.

I’ve noted a pattern to the breakages: the last time I shattered this temp was while my mother was in the hospital for high blood pressure. This happened both after my receiving the news that Frances was in the hospital and on the eve of 9-11. The tech didn’t think this was unusual: she’d seen plenty of people who ground their teeth when they got stressed. I know that Dr. Otsu wasn’t happy. His visit to my sick chamber lasted mere seconds. “Any changes in health?” was the only question he asked. I suppose he thinks I am some kind of oaf. But what can I do? When people ask me why I do these things to myself, the truthful answer I must give is “I don’t know.”