the BABY BOOMER BODY BOOK ©

THE COMPLETE HEALTH REFERENCE
FOR OUR GENERATION
BY
BRIAN PECK, M.D., DAAPM, BCFM, FAADEP

CHAPTER 8

“Oi wied u foss er’ry ‘eek”, said forty-eight year old Tony Phillips through the mass of junk the dentist had crammed into his mouth.  His tongue squirmed around like a bunch of worms as he tried to form the words.

“How often did you say? I can’t understand you!” shouted Dr. Cheryl James as she fired up the high-speed drill.  The drill looked to Tony like it had a computer-designed hardened titanium bit (dentists do not really use titanium). 

!WHIIIRRRR!!  !WHIIIRRR!!  Tony was sure he saw the good doctor pump her foot up and down, like a Nascar driver revving her engine.

Tony could picture the drill’s Warp core glowing blue as the power was added, Scotty firing progress reports to Captain Kirk as the dilithium crystals poured their power into the spinning gears.

“Captain!! I dinna think I cin git any morrre power outa’ her!!  We’re gonna breach the core!!”

The sound of the drill froze the half-formed words on Tony’s lips, which were stretched painfully into a rictus of pure terror around a stainless steel contraption that looked like it came from Torquemada’s personal collection.

Tony knew his fear was ridiculous, that the real Torquemada had been dead for five hundred years.  At least Tony was pretty certain that the drill was electric, no dilithium in sight.

    “Oi ‘obbly shuduv dunnet ‘orr offen!”  croaked Tony through the dental equipment.

    Sure, now was the time to make excuses to the dentist, Tony thought.  I should have thought of that every night for the past twenty years, while the floss was sitting in the medicine cabinet gathering dust.

    “You know, Tony”, shouted Dr. James over the alarmingly high-pitched whine of the spinning titanium, seeming to heat the very air around it from friction alone; “The floss doesn’t work on the shelf!  You actually have to use it!”

    Flossing is definitely in Letterman’s “Top Ten Things We Wished We’d Done More Of.”The trouble is, like Tony Phillips, we think of it too late, usually when disaster is upon us. You can not go back. But if you start now, you can at least prevent gum disease from getting too much worse, and you can save your teeth.

When we were kids, we were taught to brush after every meal. Most of us probably did not do it. We also got lots of cavities, but that was before fluoride, a substance added to drinking water to strengthen teeth. Our kids grew up with few or no cavities.

Our parents are the first generation to normally live into their seventies. We will be the first generation to normally live into our eighties, and beyond. That means, quite literally, that human beings have never before needed their teeth like we will need ours. Healthy and attractive teeth are necessary to good overall health, because we all have to eat, and our mouths must be free of infection. Good teeth confer an improved self-image. That means that we have to care for them, just like we have to care for our arteries, kidneys, livers, and brains.

Perhaps the most common dental myth is that tooth loss is inevitable. Tooth loss is not inevitable. It is simply the result of oral disease, not the aging process. Basic preventive strategies will help teeth last a lifetime, and that means caring for our gums. The difficulties lie in the fact that this is all new to us. We grew up brushing, but we did not know that flossing is actually more important.

We not only want to keep our teeth, but we want them to look good and to perform effectively. This means keeping the teeth in good condition, avoiding damage, and repairing damage when it does occur.

Web site designed and maintained by
Web Site Publishers, Inc

Copyright © Brian Peck