Enamel Annoyance

I don't know how I did it or when, but I managed to chip a small bit off of one of my lower front teeth. I probably would have never noticed, except that whenever I run my tongue along my front teeth, it catches on a jagged piece of enamel. At first I thought it was probably a sharp piece of food stuck in my teeth and tried to tongue it out, all the while simply scratching up said tongue. Eventually, I got frustrated and tried picking out whatever it was with my fingernails. That was the point at which I realized that there was, in fact, no food in my teeth.

Looking into the mirror I could just barely see the small off-shooting of white that was as sharp as a newborn kitten's claws. I was amazed that such a tiny piece of my tooth could be the cause of all this ruckus in my mouth. Figuring that eventually it would just wear down, I kept tonguing it and tonguing it and tonguing it until the front of my tongue was raw. The tooth chunk hadn't been worn down at all. How I didn't realize that would be the result before I started my tongue vs. tooth battle is a mystery.

Knowing now that tooth trumps tongue, I escalated the battle to using food warfare. I chewed some gum, which obviously didn't help. Later I employed the help of some hard candy... same result. So at this point, I'm pretty much to the point where I've learned to get along with the sharp mini-blade tooth chunk in my mouth, but I'd be damned if I let it win. It was time to pull out the big guns.

Visiting the bathroom, I picked up my tweezers to see if I could get on the edge of the tooth blade and snap the point off. The tooth blade was too small, however, and I merely wasted my time trying to get a hold on it and subsequently poking myself in the cheek or under my tongue. I was down to my last option--my nail file.

Snapping open the nail file that is a part of my fingernail clippers, I maneuvered it into my mouth so that the file could work against the tooth. Filing away at it for a bit, I then checked it with my tongue. By golly, it was definitely less sharp! But then I looked at the file. The took, somehow, wore down the metal file edges while slowly giving up pieces of itself. I was impressed. Who would have thought that the metal of my fingernail clippers wasn't that much tougher than a tiny chunk of tooth? I was pleasantly amazed.

Today I have no more bladed chunk of tooth bothering me. I won, but it was a long fought battle. It taught me a little something too -- If my teeth can give a metal file a pretty good fight, I'm pretty sure cavities are are a myth. There's no way food particles can burrow into my teeth if it takes a chunk of metal to simply knock a small piece of it off.