All smiles!

I think by now, pretty much everyone has been informed about Ryans teeth woes over the course of the last year...or actually his life. Well, just in case you dont know how this all started, heres his short little back story:

Ryan was 10 years old. He was at a water park with his brother, and was getting ready to go down a water slide, when some random bully came up behind him and pushed him. He landed on his stomach going feet first and slid into his brother who was standing up in the slide. As Ryan's feet hit his brothers legs it forced his brother to fall down and sit on the back of Ryan's head smashing his face first into the slide, knocking out his 2 front teeth, and shattering the bones in his gums. Where was the lifeguard you ask? Well, there wasnt one. Yeah. So begins the long story of toothless Ryan.

He made it through a lot of school without any 2 front teeth. While some people made comments and teased, it didnt bother him and he said it wasnt bad and he always had good friends that didnt seem to care much. When your little (and I mean in stature), you can get away with it because everyone looks like this:
But as he got older, he started smiling like this, so people couldnt see his missing teeth. Poor kid.
Are you crying yet? It gets better. He did get some temporaries, he called "flippers", because they could flip up and down and fell out all the time. Pretty much like a pair of dentures with only 2 teeth. They didnt look great either. So he just didnt wear them. Before his senior year of high school, he was fitted with his first bridge. They had to drill down his remaining 4 front teeth to attach the bridge to, so his front 6 were fake. It lasted right up until almost our wedding day, when he had to get it replaced. He went through our wedding, pictures and all, with temporaries, until they got him another bridge made. That bridge was pretty good. Most people couldnt tell they were fakes, unless we told them, but his bridges always seemed to slant a little too far forward. Around June 2010 though, they became loose and needed to be replaced also.

Heres the second bridge, right before they expired. This time back at the dentist, they informed him that these trusty old bridges he had been wearing werent going to cut it anymore. The teeth/screws that were drilled up into his gums to hold them in, just werent going to hold anymore and the whole bridge process was becoming outdated and there were some complications with his teeth. They wanted to do something more permanent-implants. One major problem though, remember how his bones got shattered on the water slide? Well, there wasnt enough bone there to hold the implants in. Probably why his bridges never looked right too. The dentist met with an oral surgeon and they decided the best solution that would work, would be to do bone grafts up into his gums. Sounds fun right? They would also have to extract one of his existing teeth and do three implants and three crowns. And it all started with only 2 missing teeth!

So anyway, out came the trusty bridge, and in went the knife. They did surgery to take his bone from his jaw and move it to his gums, enough to build it up to where it should be. And just on a side note: he stayed awake! If you know Ryan, and you know anything about the cost of implants, then you know why he didnt opt for the extra expense of being put to sleep. The kids were very concerned when he walked in the door with his mouth 3 times its normal size and filled with bloody gauze! He was swollen for over a week. I thought he looked adorable that way though.

My own little chipmunk! Just what I always wanted!
Especially cute when he smiled, but that hurt a little! (:
And a side shot. He spent most of the week like this: 4 months they told him. That was August 2010. 4 months for it to be all healed and ready for the implants! In the meantime, back to another version of stay in all the time dentures, which didnt stay in all the time. Since August, he has had to tear up his food and eat it like a baby. He couldnt bite with those babies in, or they would fall out. And we thought the bridge was bad! These temporaries were awful. They didnt even look close to real teeth. They did fall out on multiple occasions, making him a frequent visitor to the dentist to re-cement them.
4 months passed. In February, he went back in for his follow up. Everything was healed great. The bones looked strong. But they still had more work to do. Guess we mis-understood. He had more appointments with more experts to get everything molded, measured and ready to be made to fit perfectly into his mouth. Heres a molding of what he looked like at that point without his teeth. The 3 silver rods in the middle are where they screwed up into his gums for the implants. The blue teeth are sharpened and ready for crowns. I saw the real deal. He made a pretty good hillbilly without his teeth. The spikes scared the kids though. Haha!
A total of 11 months and they were ready to finish up his new smile. Oh, but then the dentist called before his appointment, and said they werent done yet, so another few weeks to go. Make that 12 months. Finally...the big day arrived. Bye Bye ugly dentures! They got pulled in and out so much, you could see the cement on the surface. Also, you could see the silver dental work behind them.

Hello new permanent teeth!

Before................................................................... After



They actually upgraded his teeth to the highest quality, containing gold, for having to wait that last extra few weeks. Wait?! I thought thats what we were paying for all along! PURE GOLD! It cost that much anyway. But maybe I shouldnt say that...we dont want anyone knocking them out again! (: His gums were pretty banged up from having those looses dentures in all the time, so that will take some healing, but other than that, he's all smiles!

The side view looks like the most obvious difference. No more gaps, and all straight!

The first night with his new teeth, we went out to get a sub sandwich that he could sink those new babies into! He has gotten pretty used to ripping up his food by hand, so it will take some time psycologically to really be able to bite normally. He was pretty cautious about biting into his sandwich! When he can take on a whole apple, we'll know his inner scars are healed completely!

Look, he's so happy, he's glowing!
Actually, thats just light reflecting off my camera. Think I need a new one, but Im not going to mention spending any more money for a while! This one will take a couple years to pay off! Totally worth it though! Yay!