# Bad teeth...myself to blame



## shadowguy (Jun 17, 2008)

I recently went to the dentist and got 5 fillings, four fairly good size fillings and one small. I've always had a habit of not taking care of my teeth...like not brushing for weeks. And now I keep kicking myself because of how easy I broke that habit, now I brush all the time because I'm feeling so self-conscious about my teeth. It's worse knowing I could have prevented it so easily. I keep going to the mirror and looking at my teeth trying to think "it doesn't look that bad", and there are times when I feel like my teeth are fine, then other times when I feel like they're horrible. I know it's completely irrational...nobody notices my teeth but me, and tons of people have worse teeth than I do, but I still worry about it.


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## Traci (Jan 26, 2004)

Me too, I didn't take very good of my teeth while I was in braces so I'm pretty self-conscious about them. But like you, I know there are peoples' way worse out there and I just try to remind myself of that. Lol.


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## 1ShyGuy (Jul 1, 2009)

My 2 front teeth are little crooked, one overlaps the other a bit


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## Darkjackwolf (Jul 29, 2009)

I have the same problem, I currently do not have the money to go to the dentist, so I can't chew on sweet stuff, I have to suck on it. It really sucks, and I could have prevented it so easily.


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## CeilingStarer (Dec 29, 2009)

Yeah, I stopped brushing for like a year when I was 15. I'll probably need root canal surgery soon.


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## Smitten (Oct 30, 2006)

Fillings aren't so bad...considering you haven't brushed your teeth for weeks at a time. But keep up your brushing routine including your gums because the real killer is gum disease...that makes you lose your teeth because bacteria gets in under the gum line and eats away at the root of the teeth and surrounding tissue and once that's gone you're pretty much screwed.


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## rb1088 (Jan 24, 2008)

I have Alfred E Newman or Spongebob front teeth lol. I am self conscious about my teeth too. Will I fix them? Probably not. I really don't care where my teeth are as long as they are not gold.


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## SlightlyJaded (Jun 5, 2009)

I'm very self-conscious about my teeth as well. I've always tried to take good care of them and all that, but my parents didn't have money for braces when I was a kid (I still don't have the money for them now, and even if I did, I'd probably be too nervous to do it), so two of my teeth grew in higher than the rest and I look like I have fangs. It just adds to the list of other reasons I don't want to open my mouth and talk.


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## Hello22 (Feb 10, 2010)

1ShyGuy said:


> My 2 front teeth are little crooked, one overlaps the other a bit


Same, but ironically people always say i have a lovely 'full' smile.

I would love to get invisible braces to straighten the overlapping tooth, but other than that all my teeth are straight and have no other problems


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## UltraShy (Nov 8, 2003)

I can assure you nobody is looking for fillings in your mouth, though I doubt such reassurance will do any good. I too have obsessed over many thing and reassurance never helped much.

I've only rarely noticed fillings. In once case it was a in a music video where the singer had his mouth very wide open screeching at the end of a particular song. Not likely you will have any need to open your own mouth that wide on camera.



shadowguy said:


> ...like not brushing for weeks.


When I was your age I topped that by far. I sort of "forgot" to brush between the ages of 12 and 20. Also "forgot" to see a dentist during that roughly 8 year period. I'm not kidding. It really was the long. The most shocking part: I had no cavities at all.

I tend to think this was at least in part to my consumption of diet soda rather than sugar water soda. Also it seems like some people are genetically more prone to decay than others. I tend to think the diet soda was a big part of it, since I did have several fillings in my baby teeth, including a crown over one.

At the age of 37 now I have ZERO fillings and have all of my original teeth.

I've been avoiding the dentist for the last 5 years since I was told I should go to an oral surgeon to have my right upper wisdom tooth removed due to it starting to decay. When does the Weather Channel forecast hell to freeze over? It doesn't hurt, so my motivation to see a very costly professional sadist who gets off on tearing out teeth fails to top my priority list. It would be hard to come up with anything that could terrify me more. If I ever got that done I'd then also likely have my upper left wisdom tooth removed as well to get it all done in one session.

Nothing to remove on the lower jaw -- on one side panoramic x-ray reveals there is no wisdom tooth and on the right there is a fully formed one deep in my jaw pointed forward rather than up. Despite existing, it never grew in. My dentist asked me if it hurt and I told him no; before seeing that x-ray I had no idea it existed. He said as long as it doesn't hurt, a wisdom tooth hidden in the jaw is no problem, so at least that was positive.


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## loonytoon (May 14, 2010)

SlightlyJaded said:


> I'm very self-conscious about my teeth as well. I've always tried to take good care of them and all that, but my parents didn't have money for braces when I was a kid (I still don't have the money for them now, and even if I did, I'd probably be too nervous to do it), so two of my teeth grew in higher than the rest and I look like I have fangs. It just adds to the list of other reasons I don't want to open my mouth and talk.


that's exactly how I feel about my teeth.

I'm so embarrassed to smile because I know that I am ugly to people.


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## Neptunus (Oct 29, 2007)

I have a few fillings in my molars, thanks to my love of soda when I was in my 20s. My teeth look nice from the front, but I know I need to have some more work done. The enamel has worn down on a lot of my molars too, due to bruxism. My last dentist said I have soft enamel which, according to her, is common in my area, seeing as most of us have grown up on artesian wells with no fluoridation.


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## Jessie203 (Feb 20, 2008)

Everybody has a body flaw they don't like. Even Tyra Banks has cellulite and hates her booty lol. Your teeth may not even look bad it could be just in your head. And honestly if you really don't like them at all and worst comes to worst, braces are a good option.


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## secretlyshecries (Sep 10, 2009)

I'm surprised no one ever says anything about my teeth. I guess it's not overly obvious but the bottom front row in particular is a bit crowded. My-- canines, you call them?-- have been pushed forward and it's only been getting worse for a few years now. I'm too scared to go to the dentist, even though I think if I leave it they will eventually fall out. My sister has braces and has had some extractions and will need more, so she's always talking about teeth-stuff and it always makes me feel horrible. I look at her and think 'that's the normal way to go about it' because I mean, I can't even go to the dentist. It's not just those two teeth I have problems with-- my molars are ground down a lot, probably from me grinding them in my sleep. And if you were to really look at my top teeth you'd see they don't level up with my bottom ones. It's like, misaligned I guess you could say.

At this point I feel frozen with fear regarding my teeth and doing anything about them. I feel like my mother would yell at me and ask me why I didn't do anything about it earlier. I'm terrified of it all costing a lot, and the dentist judging me, even though they aren't meant to.


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## catalinahx (Jun 8, 2010)

Me too. Well, my teeth problems are a combination of depression related/anxiety ridden/and bad genetics. All of that comes in to play for me. I have two canines over top of my regular teeth that look like fangs, and look AWFUL. When I even half heartedly smile, you can see where they're poking through my upper lip area. I HATE it. I have too many teeth related issues to spurt off in a forum, haha. You're not alone though.


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## OregonMommy (Mar 3, 2010)

It sounds like you've taken responsibility for it but don't beat yourself up over it or overobsess; I'm sure you'll find a balance in time.


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## fredcollinsworth (Mar 8, 2011)

You shouldn't worry about how your teeth look like, especially what other people would say about it. Look at folks like Morgan Freeman or Johnny Depp's wife, Vanessa Paradis! People always bash them on the web for having bad teeth and stuff but that didn't stop them from being one of the best actors of all time and one of the most sexiest French women in the US, respectively. Even I had bad teeth and I didn't mind even after I met my dentist - God bless him. As long as your teeth are clean now, it doesn't matter how it looks like so cheer up!


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## Aarmin (Feb 27, 2011)

Hello22 said:


> Same, but ironically people always say i have a lovely 'full' smile.
> 
> I would love to get invisible braces to straighten the *overlapping tooth*, but other than that all my teeth are straight and have no other problems


cute :yes


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## fredcollinsworth (Mar 8, 2011)

Aarmin said:


> cute :yes


Exactly! You know in Japan, some TV Idols have a little overlapping tooth (usually in the fangs) and they find it cute! :love2:


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## virtue134 (Feb 8, 2011)

i have really bad teeth even through i brush and use mouthwash everyday. maybe its in my gene's.


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## fredbloggs02 (Dec 14, 2009)

By 11 I'd had more fillings than you, never used to brush. Nothing ever needs correcting now untill it's booked in to be done and you're writhing on the floor in agony, they take them out and paint your mouth white. ...Untill people start alluding to you as the sole, septic, sewer canal and problem gets solved. No problem now untill then


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## Karsten (Apr 3, 2007)

My teeth are kinda ****ed, too, man. I have a few chipped teeth in the front from work accidents and I need root canals and in a few of my molars. I don't even smile anymore, as much as I would like to at times. It's humiliating. Everyone I see has perfectly straight and white teeth and it makes me very self conscious.

Sucks, because dental insurance is expensive as ****. I'm currently saving up for the work required now.


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## megpants (Mar 31, 2013)

You're really lucky. I had beautiful teeth when I was 19. I lost dental insurance and didn't go back to a dentist until this year. In that time, I brushed at least once a day and used mouthwash a few times a week as well as floss once in a while. In that time, I acquired a gum infection which ate away at some gums and bone. Now my front teeth are all a little wobbly and I'm not sure how long they are going to last. Floss, people, unless you want to lose perfectly good teeth and a lovely jaw....


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## megpants (Mar 31, 2013)

Oh yeah, I'm 22 now.


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## Diacetylmorphine (Mar 9, 2011)

My teeth aren't the best either, I actually only remember going to the dentist once in my entire life. Which was last year, got 3 fillings done.

I never drank a lot of sugary drinks (never had them in the house) or ate sweets either, always more of a savoury person. But when I was a child I'd sometimes go for weeks without brushing.


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