The Tale of the Tooth

Anyone who has known me for more than 10 minutes knows how I feel about going to the dentist. In fact, I just had to have a piece of chocolate just for WRITING the word dentist. I have tried to NOT pass on my fear (which I did not have until a dentist at a dental school where I went for a discount root canal burned the inside of my mouth and than put his hand over my mouth to keep me from screaming so he wouldn't get in trouble ... but I digress...) I don't want Hannah and Liz to fear the dentist, so I take them twice a year for cleanings and a few more times (in the beginning) to get cavities filled. Dentistry has changed a lot since I was a kid. And one of those upgrades is the use of lasers. Yes, LASERS.

Lizzie's dentist was concerned that one of her front teeth wasn't coming down. We waited about a year and it still wasn't moving into place. So he decided to do this laser procedure where he cuts open the gum with the laser and then the tooth slips into place.

Here's Lizzie the week before the procedure (or the entire year before the procedure). 

The procedure was pretty painless for Lizzie, but I have to admit that I asked if I could have some of the happy gas. They said no, in case you were wondering. This tool is new at our dentist, so pretty much everyone was standing around watching and Lizzie was happily in some SpongeBob episode in her mind (the dentist sings the spongebob theme while he works...)

It took all of about 10 minutes to get the work done, with very little blood.

By the afternoon, this is what the tooth looked like:

The next day it had slipped down even more:

Come on down, Mr. Tooth! This was the day after that:

And the next day ....:

The was about a week later. It's hard to see, but the tooth is almost fully in:

And here is the tooth now ... it really only took about 10 days to grow almost fully into place. It was pretty astounding and now Hannah wants them to do it to all of her teeth (but that's because I bought Lizzie a milkshake after the procedure because she couldn't eat for three hours) but since her teeth are in (albeit in the wrong places) she'll have to earn a milkshake some other way.

I hope you have enjoyed this stroll through the marvels of dentistry. I assure you that every word is the tooth. :)