Health

I understand why women, especially, do plastic surgery so much now. It’s really hard to age and have other people look at you in a way you wouldn’t recognize being looked at. It feels like they’re looking at somebody else. But they can’t know the you that’s really you if they just met you and you’re older.

They don’t see that 15-year-old is still in you. They don’t see the 20 year-old, or the 30 year-old. They see whatever they think is in front of them, and that is not at all what they’re truly seeing.

This elder phase of my life is not one I asked for – it’s not one that any of us ask for.

My doctor’s office had a sign in one of the exam rooms that read: “Don’t regret getting old – it’s a privilege denied to many.”

I both agree with that and disagree with that. I remember watching my relatives age, and really felt like, ‘wow death is often by 1000 cuts.’

It’s accepting the indignities of an increasingly hurting body, or a body that doesn’t want to operate the way you used to be able to operate it.

It’s such a strange design, this human body. And there’s also the reality that even if we live beyond 100 years – it’s just a moment in the expanse of time.

And who wants to live 100 years if the end of that is barely being alive or functional?

My grandfather, at 102 years old, didn’t know why he was still waking up. He could barely see, he could barely hear, and it was just existing – it wasn’t being functional in the way any of us would want to be functional.

Maybe science is working on that, and the other side of that is I wouldn’t want to be here forever either.

We are a largely warring, selfish, greedy people bent on this planet’s destruction. As one of my very dear friends said, with a broken heart, “we could’ve made this a paradise.”

Our teeth are so important to full functioning, and well-being. Mouth health is an important indicator of our overall health.

A dental revolution is important – worldwide. While hampered by circumstances like disease, accidents, disasters, drought, poverty, war, and greed, or other reasons for lack of access to good nutrition and care to keep their natural teeth, either full implants or implant-supported dentures is the way to go.

It’s currently prohibitively expensive for most, but that’s due to price setting. It’s inexpensive to make durable implants and caps, but skilled dentistry is needed for placement, and then good health practices while jawbones heal and continuing.

Or you can just get all your rotten teeth pulled and have to suffer with no dentures or dentures that won’t respond as your mouth changes over time (which is why my preference for all is permanent implants over implant-supported dentures).

Maybe there is bone disease or other illness that makes implants impossible, but a good friend who really wants to eat has dentures she hates, can’t taste her food with them in, and already has trouble feeling hungry due to multiple bouts of cancer and how that, plus radiation and chemotherapy, ravaged her body. She’d love a good steak. She can’t bite into it, and can’t really taste it with her dentures in.

The sooner an implant is placed – like immediately after a tooth removal if possible – the better the prognosis. Sometimes there isn’t enough bone, so a bone graft is needed before the implant body can be placed. It takes another six months or so to heal and set so that the implant can then be placed, and then more special care while that heals before the cap is finally placed.

Now, the cost is anywhere from $7,000 to $90,000 for implant-supported dentures: http:// https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=12&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwikzoDLoq3jAhXoUt8KHZ0mDnoQFjALegQIARAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.authoritydental.org%2Fimplants-cost&usg=AOvVaw0wVKKhkrbGzb_9XM5JXCm_

And the cost for a complete set of implants can be $30,000 – $90,000, according to one dental site: https://www.spiritdental.com/blog/individuals/the-cost-of-dental-implants-broken-down&highlight=WyJicmlkZ2UiXQ==

However, those costs are wildly variable depending on where you get them, and what dental insurance covers. Besides that, with education and lobbying, there is enough tax-money that could be diverted and used to help defray the costs of permanent teeth for all – at least in the U.S. Foundations and charities also exist to help with costs not covered by insurance, or could be set-up to help cover costs.

Proper nutrition and keeping our natural teeth our whole life is best, of course, but humans chronically lack consistent good care for a myriad of reasons, and keeping teeth is more valuable than is currently recognized. Not only does it increase self-esteem to have proper teeth, but our communication and even our facial structures change when we lose our teeth and jawbone anatomy.

Medicine is constantly improving and evolving, and there may be further dental care improvements with 3-D printing, and laser surgery, but until those are perfected, life-long teeth, with its associated less suffering, is achievable. We just have to have the will to see it through.