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overbite
11:37 Wed 26 March 03

When I was about 8 I had a dreadful underbite (my upper teeth closed inside the bite of my lower ones), so my parents shelled out some horrific amount of money for assorted dental and orthodontic work that went on for the next 8 years, and the year after that I had my four wisdom teeth removed under GA in hospital. Methinks it would have made more sense to remove the wisdom teeth before completeing the orthodontic work as my remaining teeth then moved around some more once the wisdom teeth were out.

By the time I was 21 I had some serious decay happening and suffered and suffered because I was too ashamed to go to the dentist. A couple of years later it was so bad I couldn't chew with any of my molars and therefore chewed with my front teeth.

You can imagine what this did to my front teeth.

Now I have fewer teeth than my mother (whose excuse is age).

If I had the money I'd have them all out and get ceramic implants; if I had the money and I could find a dental surgeon who wouldn't make me feel like shit for having failed to look after my teeth for three-quarters of my life.

So now I have a godawful overbite. I hadn't realised how bad it was until the other day when I was poking around with my tongue trying to figure out what on the roof of my mouth was sore. I thought it might be a blood blister (probably from eating too much popcorn too enthusiastically) so I got a little mirror and stood in front of the bathroom mirror and angled this way and that until I could see what was hurting.

It is a blood blister. It's a burst blood blister. It's an enormous burst blood blister (try saying that three times fast with a mouthful of popcorn). It's an enormous burst blood blister that extends right to the gumline behind my left eye tooth.

And this is when I discovered that my jaw is crooked.

The molars I have left on the left (top and bottom) don't line up, and only two of those I have left on the right (top and bottom) kinda line up, corners only. Meantimes one of the remaining teeth on the upper left has dropped (over the course of more than a decade) so that when I close my mouth it's almost touching my lower gum. And as a result of all this haphazard damage-control-type tooth removal (that is, leaving it far too late for root canal work) my left upper eye tooth is pushed out at a really nasty buck-toothed angle, and thus my jaw is crooked.

My mouth/chin and jawline also look deformed, in profile.

If I could blame my poor dental hygiene on bulimia, for example, I would be less ashamed, because it's kinda acceptable now for people to admit to that kind of thing. (I was astonished the first time I read in someone's online journal that they'd had to have four front teeth removed because of damage caused by bulimia - but I was also in total admiration of the girl who bravely wrote it.)

I've never had an eating disorder, though, just bad eating habits.

It's just laziness, and hating myself so much for so much of my life that I didn't bother to look after myself even in little ways like brushing my teeth.

If I could make all my teeth fall out, right now, I would.

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