More info helps

[susandennis]

judith and kyrielle put the fear of dental into me this afternoon about my soon to be hole where my broken tooth is now. They gave me all the info I needed to call my friend, Sherry, the dental hygenist. She is also my neighbor and we trade cat sitting. She came up and looked and told me that yes, over time, it is likely that one of the neighbor teeth will move towards the front of my mouth and might even tip over and likely screw up my bite but probably not enough to screw up chewing.
She also explained implants and bridges and agreed - knowing me - that neither one is going to fly with me.

Finally I asked her what 'over time' translated to and she said 'oh 10 or 15 years'. Holy crap! I can handle that.

Oh and she also told me that I shouldn't stress a bit about getting the tooth pulled. Now I feel much more informed and a lot more calm about the whole thing. I am sure glad I mentioned it here - I had no idea what I didn't know!!

Comments

[kyrielle]

Read this after I replied to the comments in the other thread - VERY glad to hear it's not a major concern after all. :)

[susandennis]

My friend (who also knows the dentist) said that he probably didn't mention it to me because he didn't want to scare me. "He probably just wanted to make sure he got that tooth out." She also allowed as how getting the tooth out is pretty important.

I sure do appreciate your questions and info. Wow. I cannot imagine how stressful it would have been to have had to deal with all of that on tooth pulling day - without you guys and my friend to help me noodle it all out!

[kyrielle]

Definitely. Though the other thing to keep in mind is, the reality is it can take weeks or a month to get a crown, cap, or bridge. It has to be made to exactly fit your mouth. I would assume, if anything, implants would be more exacting.

If you ever find yourself with a root canal or a removed tooth and they're asking you to decide right then and you don't know the answer, tell them you'll call them back about it, and then go talk to your friend(s) who may know about it. (They have to take the molds, so it means an extra appointment, but if it can wait that long, an extra few days won't hurt. Getting the injured teeth out before they can cause more pain or damage is definitely time-important since you don't want abcess or even any more pain than you must endure to get to the appointment time, but I can't believe anything that can take a month is going to hurt if you take two days finding out all the facts. :)

[waning-estrogen.livejournal.com]

First, thanks for the tipoff about the permanent accounts. Got mine!

Second: Even though you've seen the dentist already, you might ask about a stainless cap or crown, I think it was. I worked briefly with a retired dentist, who advised me of this. I also have a broken tooth way in the back, also no pain, but after more than 3 years, it still has sharp areas, and I occasionally bite my tongue. When I asked him, he said that dentists aren't likely to mention this strictly palliative treatment, because it's not very profitable. It sounds like it may not work for your tooth, but still you might want to ask about it if it could save you the spacing problem down the road.

[dlanor.livejournal.com]

Tooth problems are way up there on my list of things I can live without. Makes one always wonder why they did not take better care of their mouth when younger.

Teeth can really give you a large pain in the mouth, been there done that.