Last Monday Karin and I went into Vancouver for my second visit to the dental laboratory. The lab is making the crowns that will be mounted on the dental implants that were placed in my mouth last fall. My first trip to the lab had been for the colour matching, and this appointment was officially a “stain appointment”.

When I arrived, the technician had all six teeth sitting in front of her. Each looked like a pulled tooth without a root and was hollow inside. She used tweezers to hold each one up to my mouth to check the final colour, and had a palette of liquid paints in front of her to touch up the tooth. I had mentioned that they were surprised how white my teeth were last time, thanks to my diligent bleaching and avoidance of staining foods; and this time there were even more surprised that my teeth were now whiter. As a result, the technician had to use an even whiter shade as the final touch up. After painting each one, she put them in little oven to dry the paint; though I have no idea if it was heat, infrared, ultraviolet, or yet another option that dried the paint. I suspect it was just heat from the look of the device.

Just as the previous appointment had been rescheduled to give the lab more time, so had this appointment. I had been told on the phone that it was because of the need to make custom abutments; apparently the original delay had been while they waited for a part to make two custom abutments, but when they had called me last week to re-schedule they had already ended up making four custom abutments and needed an extra few days to make a fifth. I was naturally curious and asked exactly what was an dental abutment. The technicians were quite happy to have someone express an interest in their work, and the woman who was doing the colour matching was joined for the explanation by the technician next to her, who had done a lot of the work on my teeth.

I was shown the mold of my upper arch that had the gums removed and replaced with a pink waxy material. Since my last visit, hollow titaniuml tubes had been added in each tooth’s spot. It was explained to me that these were the abutments, which will be attached to the implants and then have the crown slide over top. Each abutment is shaved to narrow it at the end, almost making a sharp circle at the end. Of the six abutments, they had only been able to use one that was pre-machined, as my bite has my bottom teeth sliding behind my front teeth. Pre-machined abutments that stick straight out would hit my bottom teeth before the crowns were even placed over top, and they therefore had to make abutments that will allow my bottom teeth to slide behind them and the crowns over top without touching. This will be something new for me, as my bottom teeth have always hit my flipper, and my original childhood dentist had gone as far as to shave the top off of one lower canine. I will now have nothing hit when I close my mouth. They assured me when I asked that the custom abutments did not mean that they will be weaker in any way.

Both technicians were surprised when they looked in my mouth at the amount of gum growth as compared to the molds, and so I explained that it appears that I heal too good. Apparently a couple of abutments were very difficult to spot. They also warned me that with this many implants at once and the changes in my mouth both due to time and the pressure of the flipper while I was healing, there is a chance that all the crowns and/or abutments might not fit and I might have to come back again for them to redo some of them.

This afternoon I have an appointment at the 7Oaks Laser Dental Centre here in Abbotsford for Dr. Ajar to attach the crowns. It will be the first time since I was about 10 years old that I will be able to have a full toothed smile without a dental flipper. I guess I’d better go shave so that I can take some before and after pictures.

When I first blogged about my dental implants, I did so largely to let my family and friends know what was going on, as they all knew I was doing multiple trips to the dentist; but I labeled it More Than You Ever Wanted To Know as I did not figure it would be that popular a post for many. Little did I expect that it would draw me quite a few visitors that arrived through search engines, as people looked for information on either dental implants or dental flippers. I’m therefore going to try and update what is happening with my mouth so that people that may be researching can find more details.

Last week we traveled into Vancouver in order that I could visit the dental lab to have my teeth colour matched. In the past when I have had flippers made, including the one I am wearing now, the dentists have done the colour matching in their offices using a set of individual denture teeth that are each one shade darker than the next. Implants are a much more permanent and long lasting option, with the crowns that will be screwed onto the implants lasting approximately 20 years before they must be replaced. Dr. Ajar had informed me that I would need to go into the lab in Vancouver in order that they could colour match me under various lights, as the colour will look different under florescent light, incandescent light, outdoor light, bright sunlight, etc.

I was to have visited the lab several weeks ago, and should have had the crowns installed two days ago. When I did not hear from the lab to schedule the colour match appointment, I had the dental office inquire, and it was revealed that there were delays as a part needed for my crowns had to be ordered from Sweden. There was therefore no rush for the colour matching, and in fact they still did not have the part when I did go in last week.

The technician that examined my teeth did not use various lights as I had been led to believe, but rather had a ring light that appeared to be a full spectrum light. She also had two molds of my upper mouth. One which had pegs sticking out from the location of each implant, each one matching pegs that had been screwed to my implants during the molding. The other mold had the pegs and even the gum removed, and the gums had then been rebuilt using a pink waxy material. She did examine my mouth more, as she said the gums will have retreated a bit more as they further healed.

I have worked hard on getting my teeth cleaner and whiter than they have been in years, and it showed when the technician could not match my teeth from the initial set of shades, and instead had to pull out a small set of extremely white samples. She let me know that she was not matching the surface stains nor the enamel, but rather the dentin underneath. She then took out a piece of paper, drew several large teeth, and shaded with pencil different portions of each tooth to match my teeth, marking each shaded portion with the number of the corresponding colour she had matched. The end result will obviously be quite different from what I am used to; on all my flippers each tooth is one solid colour.

The visit ended with me using my fingers to pry my mouth open as wide as possible in all directions, showing both as much gum and as much teeth as possible; while the tech held the shades she had chosen next to my teeth while she took pictures.

The next step is a second appointment at the lab this coming Tuesday. They told me that the crowns will already be finished at that point, and this is to ensure they match. On the slip they gave me, the upcoming appointment is referred to as a “stain appointment”. I’ll provide an update on that visit.

I’ve had quite the busy week.

At work, our client has been up to train us on a new portion of the business that we are taking over. Training classes are a somewhat normal happening at work, as there are numerous contracts throughout the building that each have a different client, and we therefore have six classrooms in the building for training both new hires and training experienced people on new products. I guess it helps to know that we have 1500 seats at our call centre. Much of the training is done by our own people, but when it is something new and complex, we will have the client in to teach the first class and have our trainer sit in that class. Lately we have had to quickly grow our contract to handle this new work, and our regular trainer is training a third class of new hires. As our regular trainer is one of the second level support people, we cannot spare a second person from that group, and they looked towards the third level support, which consists of one other person and myself. The other person recently moved up from the second level support, and so I’m still training him! Therefore, he couldn’t be left alone to do our job for three weeks, and instead he is doing the training. I am therefore working alone, doing both our jobs.

But on top of that, there is a certain amount of schmoozing that needs to be done while the client is here. Most of it took place during business hours, but it still meant that my “me” time during breaks and lunches was sacrificed.

At home, Karin and I have been trying to advise and help my step-son Matthew. He has been experiencing something so many of us do as we enter adulthood; a desire to have it “all” now. Unfortunately, he has at the same time been hit with reality in the form of tendinitis in his arm that made him unable to continue to working as a house painter. We are helping him as much as possible, but our own finances are tight. Besides offering him a place to stay should he not be able to afford rent, our current main offering of help comes in the form of offering to help him learn to budget tightly.

To top it off, Karin has been fighting the pain of sciatica; and the only medicine that fights the pain at all brings on massive dizziness for her. So often I’ve been making dinner for us once I get home and taking care of her.

And I thought I was busy when I was just working full time and going to university….

I had tried to blog a few times this week, but my schedule fought me. I took some pictures of our snow earlier this week, which those of you that read my feed would have seen, and planned to use them in a post about our unusual weather, but two nights in a row I only got part way through before sleep took over. I finally found a few free moments at work to finish the post, only to lose the post before publishing it when my notebook blue screened when I moved it.

This weekend finally looks like it’s not all as busy. I only have to:

• take care of Karin
• do our taxes (a must, I’ve budgeted the refund into the expenses of my dental implants)
• attend our niece’s engagement party tonight
• possibly drive Karin to her lady’s lunch on Monday if she is not recovered
• do homework

A lazy weekend, no?

I started yesterday with a visit to the 7Oaks Laser Dental Centre, where I go every few weeks to see Dr. Ajar, the Oral Surgeon who is fitting me with dental implants. This is my second visit since I last blogged about my dental adventures. I realize that many will not find this of interest, but my family may wish to know the progress, and I’m actually starting to get visitors from Google searches on dental implants.

It seems I heal too well. The last visit was to expose the screws that had been implanted and was awaiting me to grow bone into the threads of the screws. My body accomplished that goal, and also grew bone around several of the screw heads.

After a couple of weeks for the gums to heal so they were stiff to pressure, yesterday was time to go in for the final impressions for the model of my mouth that will be used to make the crowns that will go on the implants. But the night before, I could only count 5 healing abutments, which are the ends that had been placed on the implants during the last visit so the gums would heal with tooth shaped holes. Sure enough, I had overly healthy gums that grew right over the abutment that was supposed to keep such a thing from happening.

This all meant extra work for Dr. Ajar, and extra pain for me; but of course it is good news when you heal better than expected. All that is left now is that I will have to go to the dental lab, which is downtown Vancouver, to have them match my tooth shade. I’ve always had the dentist do that himself, but since this is so permanent, they will apparently be shining a bunch of different lights on me so that they can match my shade in fluorescent light, my shade in sunlight, my shade in incandescent light, etc.; and then average these. Then on March 17th, I return to the dentist’s office for the crowns to be attached.