Posted by Rick Denney on April 14, 2003 at 19:35:55:
For those of you who glimpsed my previous message on the subject, the relationship to the topic at hand was a bit too tenuous, and our gracious host has invited me to try again.
I have a broken front tooth. It affects my ability to speak (I know have a slight lisp) and it puts a little fuzziness on my tongued articulations.
In my painful ordeal at the dentist's office today (it has been literally decades since my last visit), she outlined three possible repair strategies, and I would like to know if any of you have opinions based on their impact on your playing.
1. Build up the tooth with a composite material. My dentist claims that this is not a durable solution, but it is what I've been living with for about the last 30 years (I broke the tooth as a child and lived with caps until a "permanent" repair, which failed a couple of weeks ago on a piece of crusty Italian bread). I suspect my previous success was serious good luck that I'm not sure I want to depend on.
2. Install a veneer. A veneer is a porcelain front tooth surface that is glued to the front of the existing stub. It is more durable than the composite mold, but can still come off. The downside is that the back of the tooth will still likely have the shape that is making me lisp.
3. A permanent crown. This requires grinding my tooth down considerably.
No offered was an implant, and I've already heard horror stories about those, so they are off the table.
I would appreciate hearing from anyone who has had any of these procedures done, and what effect they had on playing. I'm going back for further cavity-repair torture next week, and I'd like to decide what strategy to take before that visit.
Rick "skipping the funny story this time" Denney