What price beauty?

Okay, I know dentures are necessary to help one chew and speak clearly. I probably spend more time not wearing my upper denture than wearing it (but I don't answer the door, so don't come knocking on the spur of the moment), and it's hard to make myself speak clearly. Soft foods can be tasty.

With last week's extraction of four lower teeth and the immediate insertion of a partial denture, I'm beginning to question whether I want to fit into society again or not. Ever.

My face hurts. All the damned time.

I've been wearing the partial all the time, removing it only to clean it, but after doing a little research, Dr. Google says I only need to wear it to sleep in for the first night. (I thought my dentist said to wear it all the time, but I was in pain and somewhat traumatized that day, so I may have misheard him.)

I'm afraid if I sleep without it, I'll love the feeling of my face not hurting and then I'll never put it back in.

Dentures help you chew food, speak clearly, and look nice. I understand the first two. I really don't want to just eat soft foods the rest of my life. I'm not a hermit; I interact with people other than my husband almost daily.

He's stuck with me every day.

If the Etruscans hadn't developed false teeth in 700 B.C., someone else would have. But looking nice – normal – really is an arbitrary thing. The norm is to have teeth. Comedians make jokes about the toothless. If you don't have teeth, you're automatically thought of as poor, uneducated, malnourished, or a hillbilly … you've heard it. You might have thought it, or even said it.

My tooth and bone loss is genetic. My guess is a lot of people who wear dentures had good dental hygiene and were destined to lose their teeth no matter what.

Had dentures not been invented, would we automatically think less of those who no longer have their natural teeth? We don't think less of those who wear glasses. Vision loss – like tooth loss – is a function of aging.

I don't want to put dental clinics out of business. Really. I'm just thinking out loud and nursing a perpetual headache. Or face ache.

Be kind. Especially to the toothless.