The Teeth

I guess I really do need to do a post about the teeth. Why, how, how bloody much and how fucking painful.

So this is why I needed to:

That was my smile last September – well, I say “smile” as I’d trained myself not to smile as my teeth were shit. Surprising how many people said things like “they’re fine as they are” but I guess they were just being very British.

Since I was 18, my teeth had very slowly been falling apart – mostly the top. You know how I like to criticise Brexit voters for ignoring experts? Well, I sure ignored dentistry experts. Too many sweets, way too much alcohol, too much of this, that and the other, hell maybe even a cigarette or two when I was a student, oh and not brushing my teeth when I was a teenager because “rebellion”.

Also I hated dentists, I told one where to go once when I was a teenager. I could have instead accepted his rudeness, had a brace fitted and got laid occasionally. Alas, I knew best.

Why Now?

I’m very good at putting things off which are painful, either financially or actual pain pain, and getting implants was both, and lots of both.

I think I knew before the pandemic that I needed to, but I didn’t have the money – certainly not at UK prices. This was before I knew of “Turkey Teeth” (which these are definitely NOT).

One of the triggers was hating being in the hairdresser’s chair and seeing the mirror. But still I had no money for it.

I’d long eschewed dating apps for being too ugly, and also another realisation was when I was interviewing, on video, and getting distracted by my own shit teeth in interviews, and then flunking interviews. My teeth were actually getting in the way of my success.

And then on New Year’s Day 2024, a large chunk of one of my front teeth came out whilst eating a ciabatta. That was that. I fucked off the sandwich and searched for “dental implants”.

Smile Savers in Budapest was the first place on Google. And then went back to my sandwich and pretended everything was fine.

Going To Budapest

It took me a couple of weeks to actually look properly at the website. Then a few months until I e-mailed them – fuck me that was the scariest e-mail I’d ever sent. I did also look at some other places, but Smile Savers had every single review at 5 stars, plus it was mentioned in newspapers back 15+ years ago, so I had some level of confidence in them existing and saving people’s smiles. What even is a smile?

Another reason for going with them is that they have a London clinic too – everything is more expensive in London, of course, but it means I can get check-ups without flying to Budapest.

They suggested a couple of crowns at the bottom, and implants at the top – the latter I knew I wanted. Oh and I needed a load of fillings at the bottom too. Only £11,432.00. Bargain. I waited, erm, a few more months, by which point they’d offered me a discount of £320.00 – not entirely sure why, I was only waiting for the summer to be over as fuck getting this done in 40’C heat of the Budapest summer. That was my excuse anyway.

Then it was time to head to Budapest, shit scared and totally unprepared.

There was time for one last meal though – of course, I found a roast dinner in Budapest. And actually it was pretty excellent. Proper gravy too.

And when I said I was unprepared, I really was – I had a roast dinner booked for the Sunday after my first week in Budapest not even having vaguely thought “hey I might not be able to eat”.

The Pain. The Trauma.

So my expectation was that they were doing the fillings on day one, then removing the teeth and doing the screws for the implants on day two. I even had a restaurant booking for the evening.

Alas…they decided to do it all in one afternoon.

Firstly, around 8 fillings (I’d only paid for 7, so one of them was for free!). This was horrendous enough.

Then upstairs for an insane amount of injections (yeah I could have been put to sleep but fuck paying another £700.00), followed by my top teeth being pulled out (actually the easiest part), then a bone graft – nope, I had no idea this was going to be a hammer to my face for around one minute. And then a load of stitches to sew my gum up, which was excruciatingly uncomfortable.

This took around 3-4 hours – coming round afterwards was like coming out of a k-hole, like what the fuck just happened. I zombie’d out of Implant Clinic and walked the 40 minutes back to my apartment, despite being really dehydrated, not being able to drink and just being totally WFT. Not my most sensible walk ever, but hey it’s nice over the river.

Yes that is a bus in the river. No I didn’t go on it.

Recover And Go Again

So I had no upper teeth. I was banned from dairy products to give the gums time to heel, and also beer – due to the bacteria.

Plus everything was too sore to eat anything other than mashed potato, scrambled eggs and Lindt chocolate eggs.

I had a couple more appointments that week – no more surgery, just checking I was alive, and fitting the dentures which I wore for a grand total of around 2 minutes. In the end, I figured out how to chew most things sufficiently – bar salad leaves, crusty bread, beef, apples, cucumbers…after a few weeks most things were game.

Believe it or not, I actually felt more confident with no upper teeth than the shit ones.

The rest of my stay in Budapest was fairly miserable, struggling to find things to eat – desperately attempting KFC but just losing the will to try. And the stiches were a constant irritant in my mouth for around two weeks.

Oh and it rained for 3 days consistently at the end of my stay. though at least I was allowed beer on the last day in Budapest.

Back To Budapest

6 months later it was back to Budapest to complete the teeth.

I was nowhere near as nervous, at least not until the night before. I booked a much nicer Airbnb this time, with a balcony to enjoy the rain, and even a roof terrace…to enjoy the rain. Yeah, it rained most of the time again.

I was under the assumption that the worst had passed…and in terms of intensity of session, that was true. Alas, there were 3 sessions ahead.

Monday was pretty evil. They cut open my gums again, removed the old screws, added new screws, took them out again, did a bit more drilling, screwed them back in again. And then sowed my gums up.

This was followed by preparation of the crowns on the bottom – more drilling and poking me around. Two hours later I was wandering in the Budapest rain on the way back to my apartment.

Wednesday was less evil – a fitting of the frame, and, of course some more drilling. I did have a day off in between, where I walked up a hill, through a forest and towards the museum of communist statues – and curiously it started to pour down on the way, with some pretty decent thunder.

Is It Over Yet?

By Friday I was mentally exhausted – beer wasn’t banned so I’d been having a few, plus obviously I needed lots of chocolate to get through it.

It wasn’t too torturous at first, but just when I was starting to think that it was nearly all over, the dentist and nurse stopped, looked at each other, talked in Hungarian with a quizzical frown, and then said “we just need to do a little root canal”.

FUCK OFF.

Gosh I enjoyed that beer.

So, I think it is £11,112.00 well spent. Sure I could have gone to Japan 3-4 times with that, or had another 325 roast dinner adventures in London. But also now I can re-start my Plenty Of Fish account. Fake Teeth Seeks Fake Tits…or something like that.

Plus maybe go for interviews, or put myself forward for more leadership opportunities, that kind of shiznit.

Eating is still a bit weird – it doesn’t help that I have a stinking cold right now, but cheese tastes weird. I don’t really desire to eat, like there’s something not quite there – but as I said, it could just be the stinking cold. I feel like I’m not confident using them yet…like maybe they will fall out or something.

Smiling is unnatural – something I have trained myself out of. Also talking isn’t quite as easy as it was before I had my original teeth out.

So there’s some work to do. But James 2.0 is coming on pretty well! Another smiley photo?