On Thu, 02 Dec 2004 21:14:54 GMT, "NOYB" wrote:

~~ snippage ~~

Speaking of explaining looks...
I had a lady come in today after 5 months of wearing a denture that I made
her. She complained that people have recently noticed that the teeth aren't
straight (even though for 5 months she had been perfectly happy with them).
She has a drooping right upper lip, so when she's not smiling, more of the
teeth are showing on the left than on the right. When she smiles, her lip
is straight, and consequently the teeth look straight. She told me that
all of her family members were commenting over Thanksgiving that her new
denture wasn't straight. That, of course, told me that she must not smile
a lot when her family is around. But how do you explain that to a patient?

I've worn full dentures since '68 as the result of an incompetent Army
triage doctor and a equally incompetent Navy Surgeon and over the
years, have replaced them three times. This current time will be the
fourth - about once every ten years.

To date, as a result of the incompetence of the original surgery, I
have yet to obtain a proper set of dentures. Either the teeth are too
small or the teeth are too large or the damn things don't fit right a
month after the final fit - they are a total pain in
the...er....mouth.

Fortunately this time I now have a very understanding dentist who is
striving to get it right - we've been working on this new set for two
months and we're at the final impression/teeth setting stage. The
teeth are a proper size for my face, the damn things seem to fit and
with a few final tweaks, finally - a good pair of dentures. Gonna
cost me a bundle, but this time it's worth it.

I don't envy dentists by the way - that's got to be a tough job in the
best of circumstances.

Later,

Tom