Green & Yellow Teeth? Not So Good
Originally published at Welcome To The Dollhouse. You can comment here or there.
’ve been learning a lot this week it seems. First it was how to properly strap Little Girl into her car seat (and for those who requested pictures, they will not be forthcoming!)
and now the ever important lesson that teeth should not appear green or yellow under any circumstances.
Before anyone begins to think that I have really lost my mental faculties to the point where I’ve forgotten how to brush my teeth, I want to assure you that this is not the case. But I am lazy and my laziness has led me to appear to have food-colored teeth on occasion. And that is not good.
I have not mentioned it before, but last year I succumbed to vanity and started using Invisalign, the invisible, removable braces-like teeth aligners. I suffered through years of real braces when I was a kid and had absolutely no intention of revisiting that misery with real braces to correct the recrudescence of my overbite. But according to my orthodontist (in whose waiting room I sit as the oldest patient ever), I was the perfect candidate for Invisalign.
When I first received the aligners, I was told all the rules: keep them in for at least 20 hours a day. Remove them to eat or drink anything other than water. Brush them (and your teeth) after you eat anything. And for about a week I was good, but then that old demon of laziness crept back into my world.
So now, 6 months after starting this process, I do manage to keep the aligners in 20 hours a day on most days, but hell if I’m taking them out every time I eat or drink something. That is a pain in the ass. I’m a bad patient who has managed to successfully eat with her aligners. Yet I managed to compound the badness by not at least going to the bathroom after I eat to check and see how much food is stuck in and around the aligners. And there is where the yellow and green teeth come in.
On my flight down here to Greensboro, I ran into one of the fellows from my old hospital and we got into a great conversation. I ended up giving her a ride to the hotel prattling along the whole time. Only after I got up to my room and looked in the mirror did I realize that my chicken wrap that I ate before boarding managed to leave nasty yellow and green remnants all over my teeth and gums. Not only did I look like someone who hadn’t brushed her teeth, truthfully I looked like someone who didn’t even know what a toothbrush was!
Way to make an impression, L!
So the moral of this story is…stop thinking you can play it off when you eat with your Invisalign in. You can’t. You need to go brush your damn teeth. Good lord, I’m too old to be so foolish!