I recently created this massive set of dental/periodontal illustrations depicting various dentoalveolar phenotypes from both soft tissue and hard tissue anatomical perspectives. The two scenarios at the top show an optimized periodontal phenotype (the one on the right is somewhat deficient, but still robust), and the four scenarios below are examples of intact, susceptible, and deficient bone and gingival phenotypes next to the anticipated impact of intervention; from top to bottom, the gingiva and bone get progressively worse after the teeth are straightened, which would lead to the need for additional intervention such as bone augmentation.
See more medical/scientific illustration work at hromibiomedical.com
Because I’m stuck on an exercise bike, I have a dental procedure next week, so why not
under a cut because while it’s not especially graphic, some of you probably don’t like this sort of thing
1989: I am born. At some point before I begin teething, I bite my mother to the bleeding point with just my gums as she’s trying to feed me. After that I immediately transition to drinking from a sippy cup because I wouldn’t take a bottle and my mother’s done with that
Early nineties: I am terrified of the electric toothbrush at the dentist and refuse to let it near me.
1998/1999: I develop an abscessed cavity in one of my molars and have it pulled. I distinctly remember going back to third grade afterward and everyone gathering around wanting to see the empty socket in my jaw
Early aughts: My dentist’s office institutes a new procedure wherein the patients have to sit with a mouth guard full of pure fluoride in their mouth for like five minutes straight while said patients drool all over themselves. It feels like gagging and I hate it. I am still refusing to get near the electric toothbrush.
Also early aughts: I get another abscessed cavity in a molar. One day my brother punches me in the mouth and said abscess explodes and there is much blood. My mother asks my dentist about getting sealants on my teeth, but he says they won’t help because I get cavities between my teeth, not on top of them. He also says my tooth enamel is naturally soft and I’ll likely get a lot of cavities throughout life.
Also early aughts: My sister starts seeing an orthodontist named, no joke, Dr. Pryor. One day he reaches into her mouth with no tools, no anesthetic, and just yanks out her remaining baby teeth (which were not loose). She didn’t know what had happened until she tasted blood in her mouth. He threw the baby teeth away. I did not go to Dr. Pryor for braces.
Also early aughts: While I’m losing baby teeth, a molar comes out and breaks apart in the process, revealing a massive cavity beneath the surface
2003: In the summer I get spacers put between my molars in preparation for braces and spend a month chewing with my front teeth
Also 2003: I get braces on my upper teeth and immediately after go to a sleepover, where I cannot eat anything
2004: I get braces on my lower teeth. I am supposed to wear headgear at night to fix my underbite, but I don’t because said headgear makes it impossible for me to sleep on my stomach which at the time was the only way I could sleep. I am also supposed to wear rubber bands. I do not
Mid-aughts: I go for a routine cleaning and it is discovered that I have four cavities, one in each of my twelve year molars. Each cavity is on the top of my teeth, not the sides. My mother wants to kill my childhood dentist. My current dentist is absolutely baffled that I developed cavities in the four teeth that have been in my mouth for the least amount of time.
Mid-aughts: I have four fillings in two sets of two, and I am introduced to the wonders of laughing gas
2007: It is summer and I am alone at home when suddenly I feel a pain like someone snapped a rubber band against the nerve in my jaw. This pain keeps happening and I call my mother, sobbing. She leaves work to take me to the dentist where it is determined that one of my fillings is infected and needs a root canal. I am prescribed amoxicillin which stops the shooting pains
2007: I have a root canal
2007: I understand chemistry perfectly for the first week of class. I miss one day to go to an orthodontics appointment. I never understand chemistry again.
2007: My braces are removed. I still have an underbite
2007: I get a filling in an awkward spot between two molars and am breathing in laughing gas for at least an hour. I then drive home after this, which was unwise
2009: My wisdom teeth are removed during Christmas break, as are my sister’s. The surgeon tells my mother that they saw one of my nerves while removing a tooth, which looked “stretched.” The numbness does not wear off on one side of my lower jaw
2009: Immediately after the wisdom tooth removal my face is incredibly swollen, but the instructions given to us by the surgeon suggest that I should switch to heat instead of ice after 48 hours and my mother enforces this, which makes the swelling worse
December 24, 2009: I am taken to a family Christmas party. I am on a pain medication and also an anti-nausea medication to counteract the effects of the pain medication. The anti-nausea medication makes me incredibly drowsy and I keep drifting off every few seconds. At one point I get up to go to the bathroom and am so fatigued I forget what I’m doing. I refuse to miss out on Christmas food due to my condition and so take to swallowing things whole like a snake
January 2010: The numbness in my jaw has not worn off. The surgeon’s office asks me to come back in, and my sister drives me to the office. I am called back and left alone in a room for roughly an hour while I hear the staff having a meeting somewhere else. The surgeon comes in and asks a nurse to bring a camera. I never find out what the camera is for as he decides a minute later that the camera is not needed. What follows is at least twenty minutes of the surgeon poking pins into my chin while my eyes are closed, asking if I can feel them and how many I can feel. At some point he also drags the pins around in my skin to ask if I can feel what direction they’re moving. I am told that I have minor nerve damage which will improve over time. They ask me to come back every month so they can repeat these tests. I leave. My sister, who had been planning to drive back to college as soon as my appointment ended, is fuming that it took so long. I have cuts on my face from the pins. I never return to the surgeon’s office
2011: I go to a comic convention in Chicago and later see a picture of myself uploaded online titled “Underbite Wonder Woman.” I decide to have corrective jaw surgery
2011: It is discovered that a tooth I already have a filling in has another cavity in it, and I get a second filling
2011: I drive home from college to have braces put back on in preparation for jaw surgery. I have to miss a class to do this and ask the professor if he needs a note from my orthodontist to excuse the absence. He says that he doesn’t need a note because when I return with braces, that will be proof. In my next class after the braces are on, I approach him at the start of class to show him that I have braces. He has clearly forgotten our previous conversation and stares at me like I’m an insane person who just feels the need to announce my braces to everyone
May 2012: I have jaw surgery, Lefort Osteotomy I. Two resident surgeons who were involved in the process later stop by my room high fiving each other about how well the surgery went. I am on an IV for fluids and have to struggle out of the bed roughly every hour to use the bathroom, dragging the IV stand with me. I do not sleep that night. I keep accidentally pressing the call button to the nurses’ station when I get in and out of bed. I am incoherent when I try to tell the nurses I don’t actually need them, due to my broken jaw. Despite this, my grandmother who is spending the night with me never speaks for me, and I silently seethe. During the hourly trips to the bathroom, my IV line becomes more and more wrapped around the stand, until my arm is pulled across my body to my other side while I’m lying in bed. I’m too out of it from the anesthesia to fix this. In the early morning hours I turn on the TV, having given up on sleep. The show Sweet Genius is on Food Network. Watching it while semiconscious is horrific
May 2012: I spend the next month surviving on soups, yogurt, and noodles cooked to mush. At one point, sick of everything, I try to eat a french fry, thinking that it will be soft enough. It is not. I cry in a fast food restaurant
2013: My braces are removed
Fall 2013: I am driving home from work when I feel a molar break into two pieces. My mother drives me to an emergency dentist’s office. I sit in the waiting room for over an hour while a small child repeatedly blows a whistle as loudly as he can. Neither his mother nor the staff discourage this. This remains my personal vision of hell. It is determined that a filling came out, not the actual tooth. It is repaired. I vow never to return to that office again, and my mother and I spend the ride home ranting about how terrible the experience was
Mid-twenty-teens: It is determined that six month dental cleanings are not sufficient at the rate my teeth develop plaque and I begin cleanings every four months instead. I switch to an electric toothbrush as I am told manual toothbrushes are insufficient
2017ish: I finally have a crown placed on the tooth that had a root canal in 2007. It is gold. I text @penroseparticle about this and he responds “Can’t wait to loot your corpse for material gain.” I feel like a pirate
2020: After my dentist’s office temporarily stops operations due to COVID, I have a cleaning several months late. I am told the brand of electric toothbrush I’m using is insufficient and I need to switch to a new one
2020: I mention feeling pressure in my jaw where I had the root canal. I am sent to an endodontist. I have a second root canal performed on the tooth
May 2021: I have scarification on my arm. To encourage the formation of scar tissue, I cannot let the wound heal. My immune system becomes hyperactive and starts attacking one of my teeth. I recognize the pain of an infected tooth, but it is Saturday and my dentist’s office is closed. I call the emergency line and leave a message. My dentist is on vacation. I drive around town searching for an open office. I google the emergency dentist I visited in 2013. It is closed. I google emergency dentists in general. There is nothing. I am about to go to urgent care to beg for antibiotics when my dentist calls back and sends an amoxicillin prescription to a pharmacy
May/June 2021: I have a root canal on the infected tooth. I am told the tooth behind it will also need a root canal at some point. I am given a shot of Novocaine and report that I do not feel numb. I am given a second shot. They start drilling. A milisecond later I’ve cried out and tried to leave the chair. After multiple shots in my jaw fall to do anything, the endodontist resorts to injecting Novocaine directly into my tooth. I then become numb. Between the numbing issues and the discovery that I am a mutant and have an extra canal in my tooth, the root canal takes a very long time.
2021: A mold of my tooth is taken to make a crown. A temporary crown is placed while the permanent crown is being made.
2021: I return to the dentist’s office to have the permanent crown placed. It does not fit. The dental technician coats the inside of the crown in some sort of green dye to try and see where on my tooth it is catching. There is green dye all over my face. Filing my tooth more does not make the crown fit. They take another mold and put the temporary crown back on.
2021: Another crown is made. It still takes an hour of filing and readjusting to make it fit.
2022: I schedule an appointment with the endodontist to have a root canal in the other tooth of concern before it can start causing me pain. I get to do that next week. Joy.
Multicolor Braces for children (Unisex) with a choice of 7 different colors.
Silver, Black, Pink, Lime, Teal, Pink & Lime, Pink & Teal.
You can find them under “Makeup > Face Paint”.
