I am asking advice of the mature section of our community here, youngsters don’t read on, it won’t cheer you up.
My dentist is hinting that my bottom front teeth are on their last legs, and various options are available to me varying wildly in cost and painfulness. But my first thought was flute playing, I know this can impact badly and wondered if any others had advice/ experience. Feel free to PM me if you don’t want your dental history made public!
Thanks Rob
Me too-- my dentist says the bottom teeth are crooked, discolored, cracked, and one is a composite over a post. But I won’t let him do the overhaul he wants to perform. I won’t risk it. I’d rather look less appealing than Sean Connery (the rest of me is gorgeous) than risk having problems playing the flute. I have no pain and the teeth aren’t about to fall out. They are just a bit unsightly. My smile is a bit crooked, perhaps (the rest of me is dead honest,honest).
Why risk having embouchure adjustment problems or a few weeks off the flute for the sake of an engaging aspect?
Unless the teeth have an expiration date given by your dental pro? Then it might be useful to have pro-active treatment.
I went through this almost three years ago now. I currently have four Titanium implants topped with a Titanium bar which holds a complete denture partial. The bar is screwed into the implants and the partial is set in place with four nylon clips. I use a tiny bit of Fixadent to prevent stuff from getting underneath.
The process took almost a year: six teeth pulled; healing time; four implants set into the bone; healing time; bar attached to the implants- no healing time; partials fitted and placed. I lost about three months of playing time at first then another two months after the implants were seated - healing time stuff.
It took some getting used to to feel the flute resting on my lower jaw as Titanium has no feeling but, the body being as greatly designed as it is, I was back in shape in a few weeks.
I don’t know what route your taking but I hope this helps.
BillG
I am not embarassed to say that I am well into my fifties and I have full dentures. Implants are very important and have had a drastic positive effect on my flute playing.
However, if I had a choice once again I would keep my teeth for as long as possible and even at great expense. Thirty years ago my first dentures were a real bummer for my flute playing and it was the one time in my life when I got really depressed for long periods. New sets of dentures improved the situation but it was not until my recent implant installations that the situation is now almost as good as it was when I was a young flute player.
Many thanks for replies, This gives me a good idea of what the possibilities are. At the last visit my dentist said that my lower front choppers were going to be hard to retain and it would be better to have them out and screw new stuff in. I think I shall try and put off the evil day, but if I can’t then I suppose Titanium will be the way… I won’t look like a Bond villain will I?
This is a very complicated subject. You cannot separate flute playing deterioration from aging. Not just the teeth. Complicated, but here goes. I am 75 next month. Last Sunday I was teaching soccer to a group of 6 year olds, demonstrating and talking to the parents about what we would do for the season. I make it entertaining. I kick the ball up and do a summersault and then receive it. The kids do it too. I flute around the field with a ball at my feet and the parents take pictures of The Pied Piper. I get out and play football with 6 year olds to high school every evening of the weak except Mondays. Some of the parents mentioned that they hoped they will be able to do summersaults when they are 50. At McDonalds they say I am not old enough to get a senior discount on coffee ($0.27) but I sweet talk them into it. All Ski slopes in the USA give free passes to skiers over 70. They card me. In general, my physical age is about 25 less than my chronological age. There are 2 aspects to this visa a visa flute playing:
(1) I have a mouth full of titanium spikes that look like a vampire. On the bottom the spikes stick up from a folded titanium fence. They slit the bone bare and put a titanium fence around it. They then cemented teeth onto the titanium spikes. On the top I have 6 titanium spikes threaded into implants. I have a dental plate that goes over it (not snapped like commonly done). The dentist wanted to cement the upper (kind of looks like a denture) but I said, “No”. I just put “fix-a-dent” in the holes that the titanium spikes fit into and it will hold well for a couple of days. But I take them out every night and scrub them. I think it is criminal that the dentist cements these thing in. In all ways, I consider a mouth full of titanium spikes as good as teeth. In the mornings I often just put them in and play the flute before scrubbing and using fix-a-dent for the day (or two). I play just as well, and also I have never had any problem heading high punted soccer balls.
(2) The other aspect is that I take 5 grams of dried bovine colostrums each morning. That is why I can go out and play football and not have to wait a day to recover. It restores the body tissue which is the same thing as stopping the degeneration of muscle. Look it up on google. It is full of insulin-like growth factors and many other things that are normally catalyzed by human growth hormone that decreases with age.
I am not saying this very well, too complicated and time consuming, but in general, tissue health and titanium implants is the way to go for piping into old age. Besides, there is not that much pain in surgery these days.
Nelson
When mine were finally in one of my sons asked what the Titanium band holding the partial on looked like. I snapped out the partial and smilled. “Yikes”, he chirped, “Looks like Jaws”. So, yes, you will but only if you take out the partial covering the bar!~
BillG
Blimey all this hi tech dentistry you guys would be worth a bundle melted down! At least I now have a better idea of the options. I am no stranger to having bits of metal in me since quite a few of my bones are already held together with various plates and fixings. Hell I’m only mid fifties and I can’t play soccer at all, but I can still dribble pretty well… but I just shake out the flute and carry on!
I wonder if specially designed ‘flute teeth’ might be an option you could have clip on ones for different effects. Hmm I must try and float this idea at the next meeting of the Flute Beard Corporation.
Rob
The amount I have spent on implants and new dentures in the past year could have financed
A McGee Bb boxwood flute fully keyed
AND
A Serov Eb Lancewood flute fully keyed.
But then, I wouldn’t have the confidence to do such flutes justice if I still had my floating (i.e. without implants) lower denture …
I get my 4 front teeth yanked out (lowers) on Oct 28. I’m 39. Young in relation to you flippin geezers 
, but hard living and such has brought me to this point. Nonetheless, I’l have the same issues to deal with. I hope for the best. Keeping the teeth is al fine but soon as the weather gets even the slightest bit cool,l’m in serious discomfort, so I bid these teeth farewell.
Now I know the real reason I will never start playing flute. I’m sticking to the whistle and my teeth.