This is a thread for ILXORS IN THEIR 50's

Advantages of posting on the 50s thread: Namechecking Alfred E. Newman

I still strangely have all my teeth (except the wisdoms) but they're in rough shape.. I was neglectful in my punk youth but now I'm making up for it, dentist visits every 6 months and flossing at night
A buddy (not quite 50) just had to pay like six thousand dollars to have some kind of laser gum procedure, he hadn't been to the dentist in years; trying to avoid all that

can you cram it back in?

My first thought was, Who put a freakin' tooth inside my slice of pizza?

― pplains

been there twice, feelin ya

i still feel like a cassandra a lot of the time, like does it count if half of us are saying something is a huge fucking problem that we should do these specific things about and nothing ever gets done about and a bunch of people die and then they say "oh well THERE WAS NOTHING WE COULD HAVE DONE"

the cassandra strain or smth idk

also i posted this to the wrong thread so it makes no sense, never mind

Posting on the wrong thread is very “ilxors in their 50s,” it works.

LOL

can you cram it back in?

Not without some Elmer's.

Really the only reason I went to the dentist so fast is because the root is still in there. As laissez faire as I have been with my teeth, even I know that's a lightening rod for infection.

spent much of the last 30+ hours with the left side of my mouth inexplicably throbbing with pain. (a lot of) advil was no help; the only thing that seemed to ease it was maintaining a mouth full of cool water

Could be an infection pressing on the nerve? A few years ago I had regular attacks of searing, unbelievable tooth pain - as if someone had prised a tooth out and jammed a hot needle into the exposed nerve - and it turned out to be some subterranean infection that required a wisdom tooth removed. Ouch!

Doctor was a little younger than me (of course), trying to make me feel better.

"It doesn't happen to everyone, but this sort of thing does happen occasionally to people your age..." ok, that could be taken the wrong way, but I'll let it pass...

"If it's not bothering you, then maybe you can wait..." Good, good...

"It's not like people are going to look at you and think you're a hillbilly..." Ok, he just WENT THERE...

I wish I had not googled cystoscopy *crosses legs in fear*

dentists will save teeth wherever possible, or replace them with expensive options, mainly because a gap means the next-door teeth have less support and are prone to spread into the space

i do worry about my 90s fillings. had a tooth break on me last month, a molar that was mostly filling.

anyone have some more up-to-date studies on implants? I have one, "need" another, but have heard mixed reports about long term stability?

I can confirm from work experience that dental implants are exceptionally stable if the bone is even moderately healthy. Not science obviously but those things are solid in jaws postmortem.

I just had my first one last year, it's been fine so far. It's next to another troublesome tooth, I have a feeling I may end up with two side by side.

I guess we can trust Jaq on this one.

What's the drill with cleaning them? Is it just like a normal tooth? Or do they require extra maintenance

I hope they don't need extra maintenance because I'm just brushing/flossing like a normal tooth.

Also lol I had not thought of it being lodged in my skull.

Remember goofy junior-high science fiction, where some kid with fillings or braces would start picking up radio signals from Moscow?

My teeth are pretty much in pieces at this point, I'm afraid. Several are ground down to the gum. I'd probably need at least five figures overseas to repair or remove, and probably an upper six figures to get them done here. They'll probably all be worn down or gone by the time I'm 65, and there's nothing I can do about it.

My teeth have been pretty fucked forever, but I started sleeping with one of those moulded mouthguard things a few years ago and that seems to have slowed the pace of destruction

I hate it (hate the concept, physically it is fine) and I put it off for years - but it seems to be making a big difference and I probably should have done it earlier - I hated having regular dental catastrophes more

I got a crown a year or so back, and I'm afraid I have not been taking care of it as scrupulously as I think I'm meant to - I tend not to floss, my teeth are very tight together and its very difficult. I've noticed a lot of nerve sensitvity reocurring recently which could mean the damn root under the crown is carking it. I dont want, and really cannot afford, rootcanal or implant replacement. Despite our excellent univeresal healthcare, dental (and mental) is the one area Australia shat the bed on and is thus hideously expensive.

one of my crowns fell out two days ago. i was eating a mini chocolate easter egg that was encased in a thin candy shell. this was during an in-person meeting at work. the crown came right off and i thought it was a piece of candy shell that had gone wrong in the manufacturing process. so i threw it away! five minutes later i’m rummaging in the bin for it. “don’t mind me”

oh btw i have my varifocals now and uh everything is warped and blurry unless i turn my head to look at it dead-on. this is progress????

never seen the point to them, it's not too much of a burden to have both reading and distance glasses.

i kind of agree but the thing is i did get some reading glasses from a store in the airport and i basically have to hold a book 2 inches from my face for them to work. :(

tracer, i found the exact same thing. a week later and i either don't do it so much or don't notice it so much (but yes, it's a thing, i don't think the lenses can curve to fit the frames and be correctly curved to correct the vision)

anyone have some more up-to-date studies on implants? I have one, "need" another, but have heard mixed reports about long term stability?

Anecdotally, my implant is still going strong for 24 years now.

Tracer, give it some time. IME progressive lenses take a couple of days for your brain to rewire where to look. It's incredible to me that the brain does this so quickly and on its own (in my case).

I'm just glad the tooth that fell out wasn't the one with cyanide in it.

they stuck it back in today. it turned out it had split in half, and the other half was still in there. how long will it last? i said. “could be next week, could be 5 years from now.” well it only cost £25. thank u based nhs

xpost I tend not to floss, my teeth are very tight together and its very difficult

i have this issue as well. i've have had good success (can actually get the floss between my teeth and get the floss out without fighting) using glide brand floss and some of the new waxed floss brands.

my dentist has told me that interdental brushes are better. i hate the waste they produce but i use them now and they do seem to work very well.

I've experienced almost every dental thing mentioned in this thread: Broken teeth (w/ bonus infection), root canals, replacement of Classic 80s Metal Fillings, deep cleanings that required anesthesia, and even the laser gum surgery.

My daily hygiene routine includes: Floss, Perio-Aid tool, Waterpik, and finish with a soft bristle tooth brushing and some mouth wash if I'm feeling nasty. Plus, I sleep with a Night Guard because my jaw-clenching is probably caused the gum issues (if you get a Night Guard, consider occasionally doing your own enzyme wash with a vinegar/water solution). The only common thing I have never had to do with my teeth is braces.

These days when I go in for routine teeth cleanings (4x a year - two of them I have to cover out-of-pocket), it takes them like 10-15 minutes to do them (they still cost the same as one that would take 45 minutes, of course).

my man

I (mostly) gave up bubble water/seltzer because my dentist said she could see little divots in the enamel.. "But I don't drink Coke, only unsweetened seltzers!" No matter, she said, it's the carbolic acid

it's not too much of a burden to have both reading and distance glasses.

Been my route for the last few years. Works just fine for me!

Trayce, they didnt do a root canal before putting the crown on? I thought that was standard.

I got the flu and then an old friend, a person of immense importance to the peer group that once was my whole social milieu, died -- he'd had cancer and preferred not to let people know, so it came as a shock -- most of us hadn't seen him in years, I saw him about ten years back just because my work takes me to various cities. He ran a coffee shop; it doesn't sound like much, but that coffee shop was the epicenter of social life for so many of us for a very long time -- many of us worked there, evenings often began there, as did days; it was a part of us for some time. That time passed long ago, but his death hurt us all so much -- we gathered on Facebook and just hurt together, off in various corners of our own worlds, mourning a time that passed so long ago, his death an occasion to mark the everyday loss of our earlier selves, of the greater thing we were then, which underwent the sort of slow fragmentation that's the natural end of scenes, of peer groups. I still have the flu, also the pollen in the air might/almost surely is making everything worse, but his death has me in crisis. He left our town at some point (long after I did) to return to Chicago, his original home, where his life continued and grew in many ways, and he was able to devote much of his time to a daughter he had late in life -- I have been doing the same work for 21 years, work that takes me away from home again and again, year in and year out. I'm very good at this work now...and I am plagued by the feeling that this is no way to live, that whatever my "self" is it takes a beating every time I hit the road and have to stitch it back together when I return, and that the internal cost of this process is too dear. "Is this who I am? Is this how I have chosen to live?" is perhaps the most ilxors-and-others-in-their-50s mood, of course, but I don't usually indulge any such thoughts, head down press forward make money, being parent to a disabled child makes that imperative more pressing for me, but in my sickness this week and in my grief I feel acutely that it is time for change for me.

^^^thank you for posting this; spouse and I are both in similar predicaments re: “is this who I am?” And very sorry for your loss. And the flu. Harder to cope when we physically feel like shit.

then i hope you find and can make satisfying change. or find a satisfying change of view, from which what you are doing feels more complete for you. and i’m very sorry for the loss of your friend.

sorry my post was xp. but yeah, peace to any ilxors feeling adrift, which def includes me.

Wishing you the best, JCLC, hope you are feeling better soon. The other stuff is a lot to deal with at the same time. Try to be kind to yourself and trust you will make the best decision you can when you are in a better place.

A lot to say about this but I don't think any of it would be helpful.

Commiserating is helpful

honestly anybody reading my thoughts has helped me today, I don't share much of this stuff but here among people with whom I've shared discussions for so long I feel free to unburden myself a little and it helps.

I'm very sorry for your loss, and really can identify with what you wrote. I am often struck by the loss of the feeling I had even 10-15 years ago, that anything was possible. This is definitely a time of narrowing options--but not no options at all. So I hope you can find something that gives you more peace.

update on my health: it was pneumonia & bronchitis. I'm now on a big ol cocktail of meds and just now took pleasure in eating for the first time in a week. I am mad as hell because I'm trying so hard to get back up to my long runs, running is important to me and I've been on a 2-year-plus injury jag but JUST this month I finally seemed to have turned a corner, ran 5k three times week before last....and then last week I was knocked down by illness and I know that recovering from pneumonia is yet another fuckin "take it easy on yourself" situation but there's only so easy I can take it, I'm back to work on Friday and my job involved two hours a night of being pretty energetic. main feeling right now is gratitude for the visit and feeling pleased with myself for resolving "just get your ass to the clinic as soon as you wake up" because I was in "I can't live like this, can I?" territory, it's still bad but the drugs are working.

attention bronchitis & pneumonia: 🖕