Dear LPG readers,

There has been a lot of talk about teeth since the pandemic.  I have heard on the news that people cannot find a dentist willing to take them on, and you need to go private or wait months for an appointment.

We are in a time when teeth and a white smile are essential to the young.  Many are willing to spend thousands for a bright smile, but we older people seem to be more ready to go with good old-fashioned dentures, which, let’s face it, aren’t that cheap either.   It was not that long ago when the seventy-year-olds and eighty-year-olds among us looked old because extractions were the way forward for our pearly whites, which had outlived their usefulness. Oldies looked completely different first thing in the morning.  But then most of their gnashers spent much more time in a glass of cleaning liquid on the bedside table by the digital alarm clock.  

Most of today’s pensioners can remember a time in their younger days when their grandparents perioral wrinkles were even more visible. At the end of a visit to see them, your mother would insist that you kiss grandma. I still remember the thoughts of horror as I narrowed my eyes and braced myself for the approaching vision as she got nearer with wrinkled lips puckered.

I know it is sexist to say this, but somehow, when it was Grandad's turn, it never seemed as bad. Perhaps that last kiss was not as crucial to our Grandads as it was to our Grandmas, and Grandpas have always had the option of growing a moustache as a cheap fix for the problem.

But what keeps so many of us away from the dentist’s chair?  Even if you only opt for a national health consultation, the cost of getting work done puts many people off.  It can cost anything from £26.80 to £319.10 for an entire course of NHS treatment, depending on what you need to be done, and the last time I went to see mine (quite a few years ago now), they sent me a reminder letter only six months after the end of my previous course of treatment.  This is before factoring in the private charges where a new denture will likely set you back a couple of thousand pounds.  

Then, there is the fear and pain factor, which has kept me away for a couple of years.    I looked online and discovered that 53% of the population are with me on that one, while 17% don’t go unless they have to.  I admit to being one of those…

Both my purse and my pain threshold have persuaded me that if it doesn’t hurt and you don’t look too bad, avoidance is the best personal solution.  After all, I am well past the age of trying to impress the men around me, and now that dentists are less likely to take the roots of our teeth away and our jaws keep more of their definition; as a result, I think that we can all agree that older UK faces don’t look quite so old anymore.  Although there are alternative painful injections and operations that will go some way to curing a top lip-line problem if you are worried about your teeth’s effect on your smile.  They are usually expensive, and I feel pain watching videos of how they are done!

What our pucker looks like doesn’t seem as crucial to the gentlemen. We ladies only have to look at YouTube, where there are instructions about nipping the top lip pucker lines in the bud for the next generation of older people, who seem very worried about their future top lips right now, as young as they are…   

YS, Beckenham 

YS offers a little tooth-centred information …

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… and a little lip-line-centred information …

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