I had written the blog series Travails of Toothlesness between August and November 2007 when I was 58 and had lost all my teeth.
Even though I published the blog I was not very happy.
This is redone and revised edition of the 2007 Blog
TRAVAILS OF TOOTHLESSNESS - Part One.
A man does a lot of foolish things in his younger days as he heads towards old age.
One of them is not following brushing of teeth after every meal or at least brushing one's teeth nicely and thoroughly once every morning.
One of the many foolish things I did was not follow these age-old wise words.
After crossing the age of 50 odd years I frequently suffered from the most unpleasant malaise-tooth ache. Mere words simply can not express the feeling. One has to experience it to know what it is.
During the inevitable visit to the Dental Centre a good looking dentist a lady- a fact which failed to cheer-checked me.
She told me that she was sorry my tooth was beyond recovery and had to go. I was sorrier. Wisdom tooth at that. It was extracted. Have been wondering about my reduced wisdom since:-)
Over the period of the next two to three years, my visits to the dentist lady became more frequent. The fact that she was very good looking had nothing to do with these visits.
After every such visit, she said she was sorry and I lost another tooth.
Over the next few years, the lady dentist who had taken out quite a few teeth was posted out to be replaced by another equally personable lady dentist.
After lots of visits, the new dentist had also become very familiar with the geography of my teeth. She knew how many were removed, how many had cavities, how many were loose. After saying sorry about not being able to save it she also took out a few.
By the time I was 58, during one of the visits she said "Sir, all the remaining teeth are also in bad shape. It would be better if we take out all and go in for dentures"
She also recommended pulling out all teeth in as few sittings as possible.
The top as well as bottom, front & back, left and right in all, there were 13 teeth left.
These were taken out over the next two to three months.
Thus spread over a period of about eight years or so I had become a toothless man!
In a way, it is a very good thing that the process of becoming toothless is spread over such a long time.
You see with every tooth you lose, there is a void, an empty space created in the mouth. The flesh of the cheek sinks in a little bit to fill that void.
You get used to this little depression in your face over a period of a couple of months before you lose your next tooth.
With each new extraction, another small depression is created and you get used to this little additional depression in your face over a period of a couple of months before you lose your next teeth.
As cheeks move in to fill the void created by every extraction and you keep losing more and more teeth, the contours of your face are changing.
The final change in the face and how you look takes place with the removal of the last tooth.
When this happens lower jaw moves much closer to the upper jaw due to the gap created due to the missing of all of THIRTY TWO teeth !!I
Your whole face changes. By and large, it assumes a 'collapsed look'.
As the process of losing teeth is spread over a long period, the sight of a " collapsed" face does not come as a shock as you have been getting accustomed to the gradually collapsing face over a long period of time !I
I have seen time delayed exposure photos of seed germinating, sprouting, growing to a little plant and to a big tree all within a few seconds on National Geographic Channel.
I just wonder if anyone takes such portrait photos of a person with full 32 healthy teeth and the toothless state, I am sure it will look as astonishing as the photos of a seed turning into a big tree !!!!
