October 28, 2002
DOWN HOME:
'Gum erosion' no laughing matter
___Dr. Bass took one look in my mouth and offered a succinct diagnosis: "You know, you brush your teeth too hard."
___So, who's surprised?
___I come from a long line of world-class cleaners. My mother and her mother should be enshrined in the Home-Cleaning Hall of Fame. My dad could take one piece of steel wool and make the grimiest baked-on gunkiest pot sparkle like a new diamond necklace.
___If we had a family seal, it probably would feature various cleaning instruments and the motto: "If something is worth cleaning, it's worth scrubbing like all get-out."
___We live in clean homes, drive clean cars and wear clean clothes. And we have clean teeth.
___Apparently, mine have been too clean for too long.
___Marc, my friend since college and now my attentive dentist, told me several visits ago that I had "gum erosion." I think I made a joke about drinking too much water.
___"I'm serious," he said. "Bit by bit, your gum is deteriorating. Someday, we're going to need to have that fixed for you."
___By "we," he meant Dr. Bass, a highly regarded young periodontist.
___After explaining I had "gum erosion" because of over-zealous brushing, Dr. Bass described what we could do about it. One possibility included storing my teeth in a jar at night. So, I opted for going "under the knife" last Wednesday morning.
___At first, I thought the worst part was administering the anesthesia. Since Dr. Bass needed to "harvest" some soon-to-be-gum skin from the roof of my mouth, he had to poke a grim-looking needle up and down my palate.
___By the time he actually went to work on my gums, the only thing I could feel was his glove occasionally brushing the tip of my nose. He did a great job, as far as I could tell.
___I said I thought the "worst part"
was poking the roof of my mouth with the needle. Well, that was true until that afternoon, when the anesthesia wore off, and my mouth started reminding the rest of my body the doctor had done a slice-and-dice job that morning.
___For awhile there, I thought keeping my teeth in a jar at night didn't sound like such a bad idea. But by then, it was too late, and at least what Dr. Bass had in mind didn't involve pliers and lots of tugging.
___You know the definition of "minor surgery"--an operation that takes place on someone else's body. This was minor surgery, even for me.
___But deciding to have my gums restored (uneroded?) reminded me of the warning about praying for wisdom and/or patience. You better be sure you really want it, because the price of getting what you asked usually involves discomfort and even pain.
___But, if you're blessed, not pliers.
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