This mostly comes from my father repeatedly telling me the story of how, at 25 years old, his dentist told him he had horrible teeth and would lose them all by the time he was 30. But he was super-committed and vigilant and would not have that gummy destiny forced upon him by some jerk with a supposed "medical degree". So he brushed 7 times a day, flossed by the hour, bought every new waterpik technology as soon as it emerged on the market, and used mouthwash like other people use gin. I swear he kept a flask in his back pocket and the aroma of minty freshness clung to him like cheap cologne on a Jersey Shore dude.
So, being a contrary soul, even to the point of stupidity, I refuse to do more than brush my teeth two or three times a day. I never go to the dentist if I can help it.
But there was a brief period about 5 years ago where I decided to reform my ways and get my teeth checked out. Being low on cash, especially with impending nuptials approaching, I began attending the University of Pennsylvania Dental Clinic. It is run for the education of the dental students and the care is... reflective of that.
Anyways, I could go through the litany of dental students who reviewed my teeth with pimply faced excitement, recommending more complex procedures to carve, cut and clean each time, but that would take years of explanation.
My final procedure there took place when I received the recommendation of a graduating senior to have a gum retraction. I won't gross you out with the grizzly details, but it involved showing up for a surgery where they would cut the roof of my mouth open while I was awake and graft some pig bone to my jawline. No joke.
I replied that there was no way I could afford it, even at the clinic's reduced rates, as I was getting married in a few months and was saving for the honeymoon. Neema, my "dentist" thought for a moment and then replied, "Ok, well, I'll give it to you as a wedding present. You just have to let me photograph the procedure for my thesis project." We had tried putting something similar on our wedding registry at Bed Bath and Your Mom but were stymied by the comparative shipping costs, so I took him up on his offer.
Sufficed to say, it was an experience. In a particularly shady abandoned cubicle farm in a basement of an unfindable academic building, Neema and his two assistants prepped me for surgery. So, to do the math, that's six hands working on my mouth. But was it enough? No, Neema stops at one point and says, "Dave, I can't really get a good photo with one hand. Would you mind holding your own gum retractors?" I obliged, only to begin cracking up at the ridonkulousness of my situation, chortling with laughter, high as a kite on pain killers.
This may be part of the reason why my stitches started coming out later that night. Still doped up beyond sanity, the tickling in the back of my throat drove me to madness. I proceeded to find some scissors and a butter knife to cut the offending strands out myself. Fortunately, my long suffering fiancee (now the Mrs) and her two roommates thought this unwise. None of them particularly medically inclined nor happy about icky stuff, they jumped me. While my wife pinned me down by sitting on my chest, her sister held the flashlight, and her roommate reached in and cut my stitches for me. I could only assume that she has had some similar experiences growing up in Uganda and handled herself with aplomb.
All this is to say, if you can avoid such an experience through proper dental maintenance and if you're less rigidly contrary than I, it is well worth your effort. That's why this cool set of a year's worth of toothbrushes from Anthropologie, while silly, still grabbed my eye and deserved a blog post:
They're marked with the three month time limit for which you're supposed to use them prior to discarding. If like me, you're inclined to keep a toothbrush until it is no longer useful for anything but grout cleaning, this could be beneficial.
