Your Pearly White Choppers.
From baby teeth to wisdom teeth, they demand attention.
We want our teeth to do their job and, otherwise, leave us alone. It's a bad sign if they hurt us and cannot grind our food to prepare it for digestion — when every bite is agony. Is there anything worse than a toothache?
Somehow, in my genetic makeup, I was endowed with only three wisdom teeth, not the usual four. Two of them were extracted on the same side a few years ago, leaving only one, the lower left.
I had a cavity in this tooth a couple of years ago, which was drilled and filled way back in my mouth — painful and awkward. After filling the hole, I realized I had made the wrong decision. If I had it extracted instead of filled, I could have saved myself today's discomfort and a bunch of money. Of course, I'm not a fortune teller, so the future is unpredictable, except as we look back. It's the shoulda- coulda-woulda syndrome — if only I had….
Over time, the filling chipped away, exposing the root and allowing bacteria to create aching and infection. I had left the door open for something more to happen, and it did. Several weeks ago, it started hurting to bite down or chew, and I said goodbye to my last wisdom tooth when it was extracted.
Did I need this trauma at my advanced age? Of course not. However, I'm taking care of the wound, ingesting antibiotics, and rinsing like crazy. I learned that it might take three to four months to heal fully. Even though I don't have that much to do, the after-care of tooth extraction is not what I had in mind to fill my days. However, such is life! What's a girl to do?
How different societies handle lost baby teeth is fascinating. Most all have a version of the "tooth fairy" delivering some gift or money. Western children quickly realize that the "tooth fairy" is mom or dad earlier than they give up on Santa Claus.
The children put the tooth in a glass of water in Australia, Sweden, and Norway. In Turkey, Cyprus, and Greece, children throw their fallen baby teeth onto the roofs of their houses as they make a wish. In the Far East, children throw the baby tooth onto the rooftop if it comes from the upper jaw, but from the lower jaw, the teeth are placed in the space below the floor. While doing either of these, the children verbally wish for the tooth to be replaced with the tooth of a mouse since mice have the same teeth from birth to death and grow straight.
Last to arrive in the mouth is a third molar, commonly called a wisdom tooth; these four teeth erupt anywhere between sixteen and twenty-one years of age. The name is based on the expectation of having wisdom by a young age. We all know, however, that in these years, our personalities lack reason and stability. Certainly, many more years must pass before a hint of wisdom comes to us.
Aritstotle said, "The last teeth to come in man are molars called 'wisdom-teeth,' which came at the age of twenty years, in the case of both sexes. Cases have been known in women upwards of eighty years old where, at the very close of life, the wisdom teeth have come up, causing great pain in their coming, and cases have been known of the like phenomenon in men, too. This happens, when it does happen, in the case where the wisdom teeth have not come up in early years." Aristotle, The History of Animals. Translated by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson. Aeterna Press. p.49.
We need our teeth and must take care of them. So please remember: