Bin Laden Planning to Attack U.S.

That's a fairly dramatic title, one I heard on a tape recording today, but has nothing to do with this entry which concerns itself with more dental details.

The other day, after Shervin successfully made his presentation, I learned a bit more about the difference now that I'm a patient (case?) at a dental school. To recap, I bit an apple sometime in July and loosened a tooth. Figuring that it would only get worse and that my mistakes might make good training, I decided to go to a dental school to get my teeth fixed. The fact that it's cheaper hardly entered into it at all, maybe.

I must have passed some test since they accepted me, but maybe they take everyone.

Since then I've been examined more thoroughly than any medical practioneer has ever involved him or herself with me. I've had full, revolving x-rays (like those class pictures or scenery cameras take), and Shervin's created a model of my head from the nose down with moving jaws that's more frightening than any jack-o-lantern. I'm not the best of patients since I don't keep very good track of what happens to my body, but Shervin knows more about me than anyone, at least in some sense.

If you're curious, this is a picture of the Class of 2007, of which he's a member. It blows up nicely (for a PDF), and Shervin is in the fifth row down, third from the left. I found out, while doing my stalking, that he's also like the social chairman for the dental school, which explains his excitement when we first met about the upcoming picnic.

But that's neither here nor there.

This dental school dental treatment is, to my naive surprise, more about education and health than it is about simply getting worked on. The other day, in addition to three prescriptions for toothpaste, mouthwash, and something I won't know about until tomorrow, I received three pages of stretching exercises I need to perform six times a day from the UCLA Pain Management Center. I'll file that along with the multi-page document detailing the pros and cons of every available dental filling, veneer, and procedure, and will also include the four page Patient Instruction for Control of Dental Decay/Peridontial Disease. The one I got is for adults and children over six.

Previously, from other dentists, I got at most envelopes containing gauze and a slip about post-extraction care, so I consider this progress.

Until today I'd never spent twenty dollars on toothpaste, so my life is changing.