My War Against Gingivitis

male-gingivitis by Mike

Earlier this year, I had one of the most serious ordeals with health in my life so far – my battle with gingivitis. No, scratch that. My WAR with gingivitis – because that’s really what it was – me against the gingivitis, all-out, total mobilization, day-in and day-out. It began when I paid a visit to the dentist for a semi-annual checkup a handful of months ago. She removed a good deal of plaque from the fronts of my teeth and asked me how regularly I had been brushing and for how long? I told her the truth. Now, I’m never one to neglect personal hygiene or health issues – that would totally contradict my “Body First” philosophy, after all. But, to be honest, I was always pretty lucky as far as dental health goes – that’s really the only legitimate way of describing it: “luck” – so while I was told to brush my teeth well and often as a kid – and floss, too – I never really got toothaches or problems when I didn’t so I didn’t see the point. I never even had a cavity throughout my youth – still haven’t actually! Now, like I said – I was just lucky about this, I’m not saying anyone can get away with it – and I probably shouldn’t have. Anyway, the truth of the matter dawned on me when the dentist mentioned my gingivitis infection and that I needed to start brushing her way. “Sorry,” I asked her, “are you saying if I don’t do this I CAN GET gingivitis?” The dentist, really nice lady but getting visibly impatient, said “no, you need to cure your gingivitis – you HAVE gingivitis.” Ok, now the truth of the matter dawned on me.

And so it begins. My dentist advised me to brush every day at least twice: two minutes each time, with one minute for the top and one minute for the bottom, 30 seconds apiece on each side of the mouth. Also, I only needed to brush the rim of the teeth near the gum line, which is normally pink but mine was now red. The rest of the teeth would take care of itself once all that plaque was out of the way. For the next week or so I didn’t feel a thing. Then I started seeing little patches of blood on the toothbrush every time I took it out of my mouth. I brushed harder to see if more blood would come out, which it gradually did. I eventually found the source of the blood near the front of my bottom jaw between two large teeth and in the gum line around them. I spent extra time brushing that section – and more blood came out. I continued on and it started oozing out like I had never seen it before – I had to soak a lot of it up with tissue paper, and it was spilling down to cover half my bottom lip – bringing with it a stingy sensation. Now, between the two teeth I mentioned before it looked as though a chasm had opened up and a huge tirade of shining red blood was oozing on out. It was like in the movie The Shining when the elevator doors were opening up. Playtime was over – the real action had begun!

I know that my dentist prescribed me to brush for 2 minutes each day, but I had stepped that up to 5 or 10, mostly on that section but not forgetting about the rest of my mouth – I couldn’t let the remainder of my teeth become like that – that would be overkill! With every stroke down there I knew I was making progress but I felt tremendous agony and saw a massive onslaught of blood come out – making my toothbrush entirely red. I manned up and pretended the blood was the gingivitis’s and not mine – this is a war, after all. There were some nights where even if I simply touched the toothbrush to that part of my mouth I felt sharp pain and could not go on. But I knew I had to endure every second of this if I was to go on and eventually conquer my opponent – the gingivitis. Another, smaller section had appeared a couple teeth down from the original one with marginal pain and blood. I immediately rushed my brush over there so as not to allow it to become like the first couple teeth. But a new trouble emerged – in my lower gum in the middle of the red wasteland a whitish pink sore had appeared. It was a bastion of pain and agony in its own right and began to cough up blood of its own. Remember the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest at the end when Johnny Depp is fighting the Cracken and you see its mouth? Yeah, it was kind of like that. Now the side of my mouth that the gingivitis was on starkly contrasted to the other side which seemed in perfect condition. It was the Iron Curtain of my teeth.

Over time, the sore and the trench seemed to get gradually better – provided I did not slack off and miss a day of brushing. This was crunch time now. In my lower gum where the blood had been flowing to there was now a wide patch of white skin scabs covering the pink gums with a hint of swelling. As I finished brushing every morning and night I would pick at the scabs and rip them off with a scalpel. The sore was much weakened now and the original teeth – which I could still draw a line of blood on my floss out of, was showing a hint of dead skin but the gingivitis was on the retreat. I would only have to persevere a little while longer to make my mouth gingivitis-free.

So, the moral of the story is don’t take good health for granted – because if you do than it has a habit of going away. And when you face a serious crisis, the key is thinking on your feet and endurance. If you ever have gingivitis – remember, YOU have the gingivitis, the gingivitis does not HAVE you. I’ve been much more careful about brushing my teeth now. Can’t let my history repeat itself. Thanks, good night everyone.

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