My Teeth

Two years ago, one of my teeth ached for a few days. I didn't pay much attention at the beginning but it finally came to the point of unbearable. Therefore I went to see my dentist for the first time in the US and had that naughty baby extracted. My dentist is a nice gentleman, he did my first deep teeth cleaning and suggested me to use floss, which helped me maintain the health of both teeth and gum a lot. Also for the first time of my life, I got an X-ray of my teeth, and found out I actually have 32 teeth (well, 31 half an hour later), four of which are wisdom teeth. Later I had other two teeth extracted even though they were not infected for the sake of prevention. The last wisdom tooth was troublesome: it's deeply buried in the bone and then firmly covered by gum. So my dentist explained to me that he was not able to extract that one, but if I'd like he could refer me to a specialist.

I did go to see the specialist, who checked my X-ray and mouth, and told me he could do it. I made the appointment, and finally cancelled it because of the lack of courage to have my bone cut. The fourth wisdom tooth had no idea its life was changed in a minute, and still stayed quietly in the past two years as it did before. Recently I read articles about how hormones might affect oral health and made wisdom teeth brisker than usual. Not surprisingly I thought of getting rid of this last potential trouble. Again, I got a referral from my dentist (a new one), and went to see the specialist this afternoon. This was my best dental experience ever: the doctor explained to me the pros and cons of extracting such a deeply imbedded tooth, how the infection happens and why I didn't need to worry about the tooth which has no opportunity of touching either saliva or air. After so many dentists pushing me to extract this obedient tooth, I finally heard something different. And it looks like Dr. Krey did care a lot about patients rather than charging for another surgery.

I remember when I was a little kid, my mother once brought to a dentist for tooth decay (yes I liked candies). The dentist extracted my decayed tooth and told my mom to buy my an ice-cream to help stop bleeding. I was scared to see the dentist and have the surgery, but was delighted to know that I could be awarded with an ice-cream for my brave behavior. Later that day I got an expensive ice-cream with raisin in it. That ice-cream changed all my impression of dental surgery ever since. After that, my teeth have been growing neatly and healthily, therefore I stopped visiting dentists anymore. In China the oral health care is in general much less developed. Very few use floss or clean teeth regularly, and most people have no X-ray pic of teeth through their whole lives. In recent years, people start to understand more about the importance of oral health, and start to clean teeth or wear braces if needed. These hidden babies are taken better care of.