The Backstory.

Once in a while we have to pull on our big boy pants and make tough decisions.
Having got bored of collecting guitars and bicycles I thought it was time to start collecting something altogether more bizarre – teeth.
Being a reasonably normal, adult male I was, of course, already the proud owner of a multitude of teeth that I had been in possession of since I was a small child.
Some I had definitely had for most of my life whereas others had come along rather more recently. When it comes to eating things, I find them remarkably handy.
However, in common with both Delaware and Watford – I have a gap. The latter may find theirs useful for poking things through, mine just gets in the way of my essential chewing because things sort of keep, well, poking through.
For the gap’s history, I’d like to tell a tale of heroism, of misjudged cricket balls, bar fights or miraculous escapes from certain death but unfortunately, I can’t – it’s all just too mundane.
I do remember my dentist though. I can remember her name. I can remember the way she seemed to clamp me to her heaving, antiseptic bosom as she orally tormented me with her despicable instruments of grief. I can also remember her emigrating to distant lands, clearly taking with her all my dental records.
What I can’t remember though is losing the tooth.
I’m an old man, a child of the 60s. I’ve eaten a lot of sugar; drank a lot of squash and I’ve had a lot of work done on a great many teeth – possibly ALL of them. However, other than for a distant, and possibly mistaken, memory of its removal, this tooth does not ring any bells.
I do not recall its initial filling, maybe a later, bigger filling, maybe a crown or even its final (presumably) hurty demise.
Now, it’s like I’ve always had a gap for as long as I can remember. Frustratingly, that’s now possibly only a week or two.

Before leaving me and heading for the rest of her antipodean life my dentist left me four options; a denture, a bridge, an implant or a gap. I chose the gap.
I found that gap was okay for many years and I shouldn’t complain. Unsurprisingly for me though, I did, eventually.
Now, I’ve nothing against dentures, or those that proudly sport them, but a single one just seems so, well, weird.
It’s the tooth in a glass, take it out at night, sneeze it across a crowded train carriage that puts me off. It’s just yet another thing to lose. I just knew that, “have you seen my denture” would become an everyday occurrence for my long-suffering wife.
A bridge, well, I already have two and I only have two because the cost of an implant makes me go all funny and start comparing the cost of them with bicycles, motorcycles and small houses.
One of them is a superb structure, that has had many an admiring comment. The other stops me from eating apples and makes me very careful with muesli eating lest I would swallow a tooth rather than a seed.
Credit where it’s due – they’re serving me well.

In recent years I’d noticed that the need to chew on only one side of my mouth was possibly letting the other side down. It had occurred to me on many occasions that the side I was chewing on was all crowns and bridges and their failure would be a bit of a crisis leaving me at the mercy of soup and ice-cream.
So, in one of those now or never moments I decided that it was, errrr, now or never; time to plug the gap.
So, without further ado I found myself marching to the implant clinic, having first pulled on my big boy trousers of course.

I was however pleasantly surprised to discover that, unlike most normal people, he didn’t keep them in an old Golden Virginia tobacco tin.

I’m fibbing a little bit – it wasn’t actually my first trip to the implant clinic.

The Preparation.

A previous visit, for CT scan and impressions (I gave Tommy Cooper a jolly good go) had indicated sufficient bone depth to accommodate the titanium foundation but wasn’t able to give a true indication as to the bone density. This was due partly to the more recent bone knitting together the former tooth socket but more likely down to the blob of jam that a small child had left on the lens of the scanner.
The helpful staff told me that once they were “in there” and “rummaging around” with my jawbone, they’d have a much better idea of density. If needed, a little of my precious blood, mixed with some ground cow, would provide the bone graft necessary to accommodate my toothy needs. Maybe it wasn’t jam on the scanner after all?

Even before I’d climbed into the chair I was given two different painkillers all washed down with a neon-yellow antibiotic beverage. This was followed by a little serious teeth cleaning, presumably to get rid of the neon-yellow staining.
Finally I was invited to mount the throne of dental angst. The blanket and cool shades were rather a nice, and welcome touch mind but unlike British Airways I wasn’t allowed to take them home with me.

First an X-ray to make sure everything was fine and dandy and nothing had changed over the previous six weeks. Then as many injections as I have fingers on my left hand. (Four) Then we were off with a little poking. First a little gum poking just to make sure I couldn’t feel the poking, then, after a little work with something undoubtedly like a scalpel, a little bone poking, I guess for exactly the same reason.
Having inspected the area later I’m somewhat relieved not to have been aware what the actual poking was. A mirror would have no doubt revealed some sort of horror story involving the flowing of blood and the cleaving of flesh.
“Nice healthy bone – plenty of blood” were far less comforting words than my surgeon thinks.

The Drilling

Unbeknown to me the earlier impressions had precipitated the construction of a fabulous acrylic jig that was now fitted precisely in the vacant slot allowing for a perfect launch of my surgeon’s shiny drilling rig – but not before we’d had another X-ray to confirm that everything was absolutely on target.

I resisted the urge to shout in my best Scottish accent, “Captain, she just can’nae take any more”

It came as no surprise that, as usual, there was a need to hunt around for the correct size drill bits. I was however pleasantly surprised to discover that, unlike most normal people, he didn’t keep them in an old Golden Virginia tobacco tin.

The drilling, not the usual high-pitched dental screaming sound, but a more “dad in the garage making a shelf” sort of sound, seemed rather prolonged. At any moment I was expecting his shiny tip to appear beneath my chin. I’m more than pleased to say it didn’t.
A bit more drilling, then a bit more, then one that shook my eyes out of focus and didn’t stop until my loose change fell out of my pocket. It was then announced that all was done and yet another X-ray was required.

The Screwing

Now was the time for the insertion of the metal masterpiece.
This appeared to be installed by numbers.
“Fifty please.”
“Sixty.”
“Let’s try seventy?”
I’m not sure what it was but clearly a great deal of air was needed and I can only assume that he was simply shouting for more pressure.
I resisted the urge to shout in my best Scottish accent, “Captain, she just can’nae take any more”

Well, I’d assumed that his precision installation was now complete but he then surprised me with a little flash of chrome in his hand as he whipped out a quarter inch Snap-On ratchet – Dental Edition. Why he hadn’t started with this I don’t know. Now I had to fight with someone very deliberately tightening something in my head. I was waiting for him to shout, “brace yourself or I might twist your head off” but I was spared that moment of excitement.
I did have to thoroughly brace myself though.
Another X-ray and I was now starting to glow gently. I imagined myself looking like the child in the Ready Brek advert.

The 3½

I’ve no idea what it is other than being 3½. It might be 3½ mm wide or 3½mm high. Maybe it cost £3.50 – who knows. Either way, it was the last thing installed and the surgeon knew he’d seen some 3½s somewhere and the nurse knew where they were. I now have one.
I’m weirdly pleased.
If I remember I’ll ask next time.

The Reassembly

“Perfect, let’s get you all stitched up then.”
Stitched up? This was news to me.
Hey ho.
Well, a stitch here, a stitch there, another here and one down there. Just what had he been doing?
Later, with a torch and mirror, I’d discover that my playful implantologist, under the cover of anaesthetic, had been rather liberal with his scalpel and had clearly been carving his signature into my gums.

So, with a big bag of painkillers, ice pack and gauze I bade them farewell and made my merry way home.

For those that like a happy ending the ice pack and gauze and most of the painkillers are still in the bag.
The implant was painless but the stitches in my gum were sore and irritating until their removal a week later.

For Christmas I get my lovely new tooth. I believe there’s a song about that?

I still don’t know what’s 3½.