Here is a bit of background for those who may not know - Josh has had bad teeth most of his adult life (he says since he got back from his mission in 2001). He's had root canals on just about every tooth in his mouth, many have been pulled, or broken all the way down to the gums, and he'd get infections all the time. Now don't get us wrong, he DID take care of them, but that did nothing to stop the constant breakdown. It's been a source of great stress and agitation, not to mention a huge financial burden when the limit on our dental coverage is only $1200, and they won't cover any tooth that's been worked on in the past 2 years!
For a long time we've been talking about getting him dentures. He went to the dentist in town, who said he would only need partials, and set out to fix the teeth he had. When these teeth fell out months, or weeks, after being fixed, we started to realize that they just weren't worth saving. On top of that, the dentist in town here does REALLY shoddy work, and the administrator who was supposed to be getting us a cost estimate for the dentures sat around doing nothing and saying she didn't know she was supposed to do something! grrr...
We also had a difficult time figuring out how we were going to pay for it all. The cost of the dentures, and all the work involved was upwards of $4000 - $5000, and who has that kind of money laying around, even if they are better off than we are? But in answer to a prayer, a merciful benefactor stepped in and told us, "You need it. Get it done."
So we took our case to Josh's more trusted dentist in Edmonton. We had been hesitating to do this, since the distance made it a costly endeavor just to go down for an appointment. But his first assessment reasssured us that it was all worth the cost of the trip! The dentist is awesome and friendly, they are up front and honest about the cost, what needs to be done, how things will go, different options, etc. So we set things up, and at long last, all was done!
On monday morning, he got his teeth pulled and his dentures fitted. He says there were about 20+ teeth that got yanked. Some of them pretty much walked out, which caused even the dentist to exclaim "Wow, that was a lot easier than it should have been!" Others put up a bit of a fight and left Josh's jaw pretty sore.
It's going to take Josh a while to break in his gums well enough to eat tougher foods - he's on a liquid/mushy food diet for a while. He has to go in for another adjustment in three weeks, once the gums have healed completely, to make the denture tighter. I really feel for him, a man who finds great joy in eating! On monday, he couldn't eat anything. Our wonderful friend Sharon made him a smoothie for supper, and he had a root beer float. On tuesday, he nibbled his way through some timbits - with difficulty. We bought him a pile of soft food - soups, yogourt, pudding, juice, Carnation Minute Breakfasts, etc. His gums are still sore, and the teeth feel foreign to him, but he's getting better fast. When he went in for his follow-up on tuesday, the dentist said his gums looked "beautiful". hahaha!
I must also mention that we had a hysterical time last night after Josh took his teeth out and started making faces in the mirror. I love that he is so easy-going and has a great sense of humor!
And as far as aesthetics go, they look awesome! We don't want to be vain, but it must be agreed that after 9 years of crumbling, his old teeth didn't look so great...
And while they may not be all that functional now, the new teeth look great, and do wonders for his whole face!
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