Bucky Beaver On Steroids

If you clicked on this Hub, thinking it was about beavers or the illegal use of anabolic steroids...sorry. It is about getting your teeth out, plus the challenges dentures present.

That said, let's get started.

My wife and I met in late 1996 in Tonopah, Nevada. It did not take us long to realize we'd been looking for each other for a hunka hunka burning years. Six months later, after moving first to Reno and then to Sturgis, South Dakota, we realized her teeth needed to be removed.

All of them.

She already had a partial plate, the story of which might be worth a Hub or two on its own, but there were plenty of ivories left. They were giving her considerable trouble, and she had attempted to have them removed more than once in the past. Unfortunately, she had never been able to find a dental surgeon willing to do the job. They all wanted her to keep what she had and keep paying them lots of money for fillings, crowns, and root canals.

Do I sound bitter? Or at least contemptuous of dentistry? If I do, there is some truth in that. This was in June of 1997. I had found a dental surgeon to pull my entire set of fangs in 1992, but not until after a long, determined search. What my dentist found when he did finally do the extractions was enough to convince him that I had been right...and that both he and the x-rays had been wrong.

But that story is for another Hub; suffice it to say I believe that we ordinary humans pay doctors and dentists, and that means they work for us. Furthermore, my experience so far (I'm 64) indicates that I know my own body far, far better than anyone else can.

One reason that Pam and I are so compatible is that she has exactly the same viewpoint regarding the medical community. When I suggested that I could search for a workable dentist to get her teeth extracted, she accepted my offer wholeheartedly. As it turned out, I only had to go as far as Rapid City, just 25 miles down the road. We met with this fine gentleman for an initial consultation. He gave her a dental exam on the spot and agreed to do the extractions.

We were in love. Sort of, anyway--the consult had gone so well that we were definitely hopeful. She received a prescription for antibiotics so that she would be less susceptible to infection when the day came, and her medical doctor willingly prescribed a strong tranquilizer so she could get some sleep the night before surgery.

At that time, also, her son Zachary (whom I consider my own son now) was visiting with us for a month. Zach was only eleven, but he was a great comfort to his scared little Mommy and a great help to me as well.

The morning came, and we drove into Rapid City for the first set of extractions. Removing a full set of teeth under a local anesthetic is usually done in two parts. If it is done under general anesthetic in a hospital, it is not uncommon to have all of them out at once. We had opted for plan A.

There will be another Hub (eventually) about the trauma and triumph associated with the extractions themselves, including the two roots that had already turned green before being pulled, but for now let's talk about her new set of dentures.

They did not fit.

The dental lab simply could not believe her mouth size, which was more typical of a ten year old girl than a grown woman in her forties. Instead of matching the bite impressions he had been given by Pam's dentist, he acted on his own. It was a little like trying to fit leopard fangs to a house cat.

My Pammie tried. She tried so hard. Thinking maybe she just had to get used to them for her jaws to quit aching, she would glue them in and go around smiling despite the pain. That's my girl. She does that. There is even a snapshot we have (not to be shared online) in which she is striking a dance pose in front of my late mother's home, smiling bigtime for the camera.

Before many days had passed, we knew they were not right. I called the dentist and got the bum's rush. We were crackpots, they were experts, go away, grow up, act like adults. Oh, not those words, but you know the drill. If you haven't run into attitudes like that in the medical community, you don't live on this planet.

Nobody does that to my lady. Nobody.

I hit the word processor, cranking out a letter to the dentist with a copy to Medicaid--since Medicaid was paying for Pam's dental work at that time. (After we got married, of course, they quit that.) In the letter I described the visual effect of her new dentures as:

"...making her look like Bucky Beaver on steroids."

We got immediate results:

1. A quick appointment with the dentist with the lab tech present. The tech took one look at Pam and went into shock, exclaiming, "You didn't tell me she was the size of a ten year old child!" True, but wouldn't you think he could have followed the bite pattern she had provided? At any rate, he took his own impressions that time around and still found it necessary to remove several teeth from the final product to make things come out right.

2. A quick make-a-new-set job and a fitting. Thankfully, the new set did fit much better, and we heaved a few sighs of relief. Naturally, the dentist--whom I had obviously made highly nervous, demanding that he actually perform up to industry standards--wanted Pam to sign off, saying they had now done it right and would we please go away and stay there, and if we didn't, then her signature would be hauled out to wave in our faces in court.

She signed. Later, we wondered if we had done the right thing. Her new upper plate fit perfectly after she got used to it, but in the end, the lower...did not.

It is amazing how drastically Pam can adapt to changing conditions and circumstances. When we go out in public, she wears her upper only (which now, some eleven years later does need either relining or replacement). Even without the lower plate installed, she is so skilled that no one notices she is only wearing half a set of dentures.

The most amazing thing is that she can actually eat while wearing the upper plate only. I tried that with my set more than once, just to prove that anything she could do, I could do also. Wrong. I kept biting myself, no mercy, much harm, much foul.

When it comes to making "home adjustments" to dentures, I have gained a few skills over the years. If there is a "sore spot" that needs grinding down for a smoother fit, then I grind it down. At first, being scared and cautious, I used a point file to do the job. (Such a file is designed for dressing down metal "points" in automotive ignition systems.)

Now I've graduated to power equipment: The Dremel, a versatile power tool with little grinding wheel attachments for many different purposes. I'm guessing the makers of the Dremel would never have thought of grinding false teeth with their invention to get a better fit. But it must be admitted that not even the mighty Dremel could have helped with the oversized choppers that made my Pammie look like Bucky Beaver on steroids.

Thanks for reading,

Ghost32