June 19 - Smile
So now you'll get the whole story of why I swapped June 7 and June 19.
Today, I have a new smile! I was seriously like a kid in a candy store, walking into my dentist today. And when do you ever hear that?
YAYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!
But you have to wait until the end to see it. As a bonus, you'll get a before and after. Actually, you'll even get a before-before. You'll see what I mean. Stay with me.
When my adult front teeth came in as a kid, one tooth came in with a big calcification. It's like a stripe down the middle of my tooth. They thought it was result of damage received to the baby tooth when I was a toddler. I'm not so convinced, but that's another story.
This was my smile at age 9. You can see the ugly stripe the arrow is highlighting. Three years of braces later hid my ugly tooth, but once I got out of braces in my teens, my dentist suggested bonding to cover up that ugly "racing stripe," as I call it. Bonding is just like a coat or two of paint on the tooth. It can be fragile, but I've never had major trouble with it. I was told it would never discolor. Um, I don't think so.
For the last few years I have noticed the bonding on my front tooth discoloring. I'm to the point where I'm really self conscious about it. I don't like to smile for pictures. Kids notice the yellow tooth and adults notice it and I get questions about it. It's been long overdue for a fresh coat of paint and I've put it off in order to put adoption and other expenses first. Plus, even if we had dental insurance (which we don't), it's not like a cosmetic procedure like this would be covered under insurance anyway.
This picture above is what my smile looked like with the discolored bonding. This photo is actually from right before I went to China, but it shows the discoloration very well. You can see why I've been self conscious!
Today I got it done and I'm thrilled! I'm no longer self conscious about it. I'm happy to show off my smile again. My dentist assures me that today's bonding products are much better than those of 20 years ago and this one will make me very happy!
Surprisingly, it wasn't as easy an appointment as I remembered. I actually had to be numbed because the high speed "sander" they used to buff off the old bonding was giving me zingers completely down to my fingertips and toes. WOW! My gums are still a little red and puffy in this picture too because they take this sandpaper and thread it between your teeth to make sure no composite material is left rough in between. I was in and out in a hour and I'm thrilled with the results.
Say, "Cheeeeeeeeeeeese!"
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| Ah, so much better! But sorry I didn't have any lipstick on. |
So happy to have my smile back!
