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I broke a veneer while eating lunch. This is probably the 15th time Iāll need an emergency repair. Itās never convenient and itās always expensive to repair.
Iām so mad at myself. Donāt be 21 year old me and get extensive cosmetic dental work, if itās not necessary. Hereās why:
Iām so mad at myself. Donāt be 21 year old me and get extensive cosmetic dental work, if itās not necessary. Hereās why:
I felt my teeth were smaller shaped, especially next to my two front crowns that I had for years after taking a softball to the mouth. A bit of online poker notoriety, I started getting asked to do TV appearances, something I never could have imagined.
Anxious about my appearance, I fell into societal pressure to have the perfect pearly white smile. I found a cosmetic dentist online and scheduled a consultation. The dentist was excited to have my low self-esteem self in his chair. He knows heās about to get a big payday.
The consultation went as expected, he pointed out even more imperfections, while agreeing with my own insecurities. Iām told to achieve the look I want, Iāll need 8 veneers and my two crowns replaced for a better color and shape match, and I need laser gum reshaping.
All that work for the cost of $17k. No one could talk me out of the procedure, and I just had a professional reaffirm my own insecurities. I spent a day getting my teeth filed down to nubs. That night, I remember screaming in excruciating pain with a full week of pain to follow.
There was no going back. My strong and healthy teeth were now replaced with a thin veneer, but temporary ones. It took about two weeks for the permanent veneers, and guess what? Another long prep and tons of work to get the temporary veneers off, more pain. Yay!
Weeks of pain, 100s of needles, hours of sitting in a dental chair, 17k later, I finally had a smile I was proud of. Surprisingly, thatās not the nightmare part. Only a few months after my makeover, I needed a repair. Again, itās never convenient.
I was in the Bahamas, for a poker tournament and I caught a bad cold. A cough drop hit my veneer the wrong way, and sure enough, it broke off. I was lucky to have brought my parents and they found putty to help it temporarily stay in place.
Years of these incidents continued to happen, and itās costed another fortune on emergency repairs, replacement veneers, and some fully replaced by permanent crowns. From all the trauma, unknowingly, a root died in my front tooth and caused a large cyst to create bone damage.
This caused my front tooth to also shift, and now Iāll need major surgery to have the cyst removed, along with a bone graft. Iām a mom, and I certainly donāt have the constant cash flow that I did in my 20s, and even so, my kidās needs are more important.
The future costs of actually repairing the rest of my teeth is unknown. Iāll admit, after all the work, I had temporary confidence in my smile, but that is now lost and replaced by regret and fear. Itās not worth it.
If youāve thought about cosmetic dentistry, heed my warning. Know that what youāre committing to is lifelong. Keep your teeth healthy, get the essential work. Dentistry IS healthcare. You can die from tooth infections, even from tooth infections from cosmetic dentistry.
Your smile is better when youāre happy and healthy. Itās okay if itās not perfect, itās you. Screw societal pressures. If you absolutely believe a better smile will give YOU more confidence, get crowns instead. Veneers suck and youāll eventually need crowns.
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