Dental Part 2
Earl calls it “the press”. It is a relentless cascade of questions designed to skillfully penetrate or as the case may be, ruthlessly jackhammer through the chaff to uncover the truth or essence of a thing. Once found, the big picture and the way forward magically appear. Like all magic however, it can be used for ill-advised purposes such as searching for the answer I want. After initial research on the pros and cons of orthodontics at my age, I figured my dentist was an idiot. Hmmm.
A friend from the gym is the root canal guy of Annapolis and when I suggested I needed a new dentist, he recommended another local with a great reputation. The sign on the door said she was a Prosthodontist. I had absolutely no idea what that meant but visions of excruciating pain and suffering bubbled up.
Contrary to expectations I found complete competence, one of my favorite things. Now the press could proceed in earnest. Of course as you already know, regardless of how many times I asked the questions or in what form, I didn’t get the answer I wanted, ie. an easy way out. I was told plain and simple, you need braces. Ok, my dentist is not an idiot.
Luckily birds of the feather flock together and she recommended other competent and knowledgeable people, one of which was a periodontist who introduced me to Wilkodonics. I asked a LOT of informed questions. He was good with that (for over an hour). Many doctors are not. I learned a great deal and after mulling things over, was struck by the thought that much of this should be part of the conversation with the regular dentist and it is not. With knowledge, one can make an informed decision either to keep your head in the sand, roll the dice that your teeth will hang in there or take action.
If you want to proactively increase the odds of keeping your teeth into old age, now is a good time to focus. When your bite is off, teeth can become unstable. This subtle loosening allows the bacteria that exist in all our mouths to get busy causing bone loss around the teeth. Bone loss results in additional instability and more bacteria. Plus that oh so attractive gum recession will occur. Eventually a tooth will fall out which accelerates the bone loss, etc. You get the idea, it’s a negative spiral. 
And guess what, it is impossible to have a good bite with snaggle teeth. I don’t care how many times the dentist has me smash that blue paper between my teeth and he grinds away some offensive spot, the bite is wrong. For me, the term is subclinical periodontal disease. Everything looks fine on the surface but when you open the closet door, things start tumbling out.
So priority one, fix the bite. How? Orthodontics is the answer but first the periodontist has to determine if there is enough bone around the roots to accommodate movement of the tooth. In other words, if there is not enough bone, the root could pop out of the bone during orthodontics. This is bad. I do not have enough bone so orthodontics on its own is out. Enter Wilkodonics. The following article will make you’re your head spin so I will sum up in as few words as I can. Wilkodonics is a bone graft that increases the volume of the bone around the root. Therefore for those of us who have already had bone loss, orthodontics is now an option to correct bite issues while turning back the clock on periodontal disease. But the giant cherry on top is that as the new bone assimilates into the old bone, it all becomes much softer. Therefore with applied pressure, teeth move very fast thus dramatically reducing the time in braces from years to months. Further, combining Wilkodonics with orthodontics results in less relapse down the road, ie. the tendency back towards snaggle teeth. There are other benefits and one in particular that I will save for another post. Of course there are possible downsides that must be understood but the potential risk was far less than the definite benefits. http://www.orthotown.com/orthotown/article.aspx?aid=3384
Happily the path forward has been revealed. I am taking it. Invisalign and Wilkodonics may not have been the answer I wanted but they are the comprehensive solution I needed. The money has been paid, appointments confirmed and frankly, anxiety sky high. Next step is kicking off the Invisalign process…
The tooth fairy was clearly in a bad mood when visiting me. This along with my parents’ decision to forgo braces has led to adult snaggle teeth. A dentist would refer to this as significant overcrowding. My teeth are not straight when viewed from any plane. They jog up and down and back and forth with a bit of caving in to make it really interesting. And when my permanent teeth arrived, the dentist decided to grind down the extra long canines to avoid that unpleasant vampire look. I am not making this up. Plus my teeth were very cavity prone. Not sure it had anything to do the bandaid box of sweetarts I brought to school everyday but lots of cavities meant lots of dreaded dental visits often without novocain. To make it worse our family doctor supplemented our diets with constant antibiotics. That does amazing things to the color of your teeth.
Fast forward to 58 years old. I figured by keeping my teeth tidy and gums healthy, the really scary dental work magnified by an active imagination could be avoided. To this end I had my teeth cleaned 4 times a year, flossed, proxabrushed and replaced amalgam fillings with composite. But the snaggle teeth would not be ignored and I started to experience pain. My dentist said I needed braces. Whoaaa, I am 58, is that even possible? He said to see an orthodontist. This was the beginning of a learning curve that culminated in a decision to fix my teeth with Invisalign and Accelerated Osteogenic Orthodontics (AOO) also known as Wilkodonics. Unfortunately there is an incredible lack of awareness about Wilkodonics, even among the dental community. So in an effort to change that, I will chronicle the process from beginning to end. Hopefully it helps someone else out there.