Thursday, January 25, 2007

Thoughts For The Downtime: Implants for Surfers

I am down for about a week this week. So my WavLOG fans, sorry about no fun surf report. You know that there is a way to write a comment on this BLOG, so you are welcome to write whatever length stuff in there. You can also start your own Surf Blogs too! It is really a fun way of keeping the log of your humble start, the rise and eventual fall of your surfing career, but it would be a great way of looking back and remembering all the good and bad things that has happened.

The reason why I am down this week is because I had a missing tooth for quite some years and it is being replaced this week. I have also seen many surfers with missing teeth, for the reasons we are too familiar with, so I thought I write about it.

If you happen to lose one completely, implant is actually quite a good way to go, if you can afford the expense, but then I think something as important as a teeth, you should seriously consider it because if you go the way of bridging then you basically have to damage the adjacent teeth by shaving them down and capping them to construct a bridge over the missing section. I happen to believe that you should keep as many healthy teeth as possible, since they won't grow after a loss (unlike the shark in the ocean.)

Speaking of this, my dentist was very concerned about impacts while the implant would stabilize after a procedure, and I was discussing about various impacts with my dentist yesterday, and wearing a full helmet is also very helpful in this regard as quite a bit of jaw bone is protected from side impacts. Sure it does not look fashionable, but considering the expense, and the downtime that I can avoid it is a good insurance to have. He also suggested that I should look into getting a mouth guard.

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