This used to be quite common. In Ireland for example back in the 1970s about 30% of the population had no natural teeth whatsoever. It used to be a common thing for young women to have all their teeth pulled and replaced with dentures before being married. It was seen as a desirable trait for en eligible bride to be.
I was genuinely thinking about this...I mean for enamel is so high maintenance and gets spoilt so easily not just germs but also acid reflux and natural decay...
This is still common. I recall the anecdote that there is one US state where one in four people have no teeth, due to getting them all pulled, though I can't find the data now.
My wife is a dentist. One of her classmates told the story of their parent's dental practice, where someone had taken their teenager in, discovered they needed some expensive dental work, and said "take out all the teeth, they're gonna fail eventually anyway".
Having had wisdom teeth removed, a couple root canals and several cavaties, and having seen the discomfort and problems my wife and daughter’s impacted teeth have had on them, you could do much worse than just ripping them all out and replacing them with high quality manufactured teeth.
Human teeth are about as reliable as the gal bladder. Obviously it would be preferable to maintain your essence but (post)agrarian diets and lifestyles disagree.
Yes I know they're not the most reliable teeth in the world, that's not what I'm talking about. A parent saying "take out all the teeth, they're gonna fail eventually anyway"? Am I weird for thinking that sounds horrible? I can't even try to make analogies for it because whatever I think of is not as bad as that quote.
I think its horrible - its far too early to make that decision for your child. I think its something a person should make for themselves. "Expensive dental work" could mean only a few teeth impacted - the rest may be perfectly great. I see no reason to take them out.
For many children, my daughter in this case, it was an option, and was suggested. We didn't go that route but given both parents teeth and the dentist's assessment it would have been reasonable.
I think what your main concern is that such a drastic body modification should not be done in a flippant manner. I feel the same way about hormone therapy.
Oh heck no, you act as if implants are a simple, permanent thing. I worked at a series of offices that specialized in implants long before they were a fad and whom pioneered techniques.
The reason they sell well with old people is that the patient will be dead before the lifecycle of the implant is up.
There are SO many things that can and do go wrong placing implants, especially now that every corner dentist is using them as a profit center.
Bone loss, gum recession, rejected implants, nerve issues, poor aging of crowns in both color/quality, and a million other things make implants far from a simple solution.
A full set of implants is easily over 60k often times up near 80-100k, and a huge number of full mouth implant patients had to come back due to complications (and our offices had lower complication numbers per implant.)
If it weren't for the bone loss thats hard to get back, implant supported dentures are almost a better way to go.
My dentist would be horrified if she heard about pulling out functional teeth.
She does implants but she is aware and open about inferiority of artificial solutions and always tries to save as much of natural teeth as she can because mechanical interface between artificial thing and tissue never works as good as real stuff.
See my post a little bit up - you're totally right. I saw it from the dentist PoV and theres a lot they don't tell you - let alone that most dentists should not be let near an implant.
Only if you don’t get implants, a bridge or dentures. It’s not about the teeth per se, it’s about the pressure you exert on the bone underneath the teeth. If you can still bite hard and exert force on the underlying bone you’ll be fine.
No, only if you get implants (and they are done right.) Bone still recedes if you have a denture or bridge. Its such a common issue that dental software ships with a video to show patients this.
No, it was to save on future dental costs, and that was seen as desireable not... what you said. It was not atypical for it to be paid for by the parents or either bride or groom as a wedding present. The idea was that pulling all of the teeth and replacing them with dentures was inevitable, and by doing it before tons of money was spent preserving the natural teeth for some time, you’d be setting the couple up for financial success.
