By Justin Juul (with apologies to Broke-Ass Stuart)
It really sucks when your teeth start falling apart, especially when you're young and broke, but you don't have to quit your job and run off to Mexico or spend weeks trying to win the lottery at BFC as soon as it starts happening. (See this week's Guardian cover story.) If the pain is tolerable, you can put off emptying your bank account at the dentist for years. But you're gonna need some things. Here are five items you'll need to get through the wait.
Ibuprofen
Vocodin and OxyContin are great and all, but they're expensive as hell and it's hard to get a prescription for them. Especially when you don't have health insurance! I've always relied on Ibuprofen. It's cheap and it works. Eat one or two for normal throbbing and up to 15 a day for serious pain. And don't worry about overdosing on the stuff. I've eaten a whole bottle in a single weekend and look at me. I'm alive.
Fun Flossers!
Tooth Harps
Eating with a full set of rotten teeth isn't impossible, but it can be really difficult and it's always irritating. By the time I was 26 my teeth had deteriorated to the point where I could lose an entire peanut in one of my cavities. Seriously! I could fit the tip of my pinky in two of them. So at the end of every meal I would have to run to bathroom to empty the food out of my cavities. Toothpicks work pretty well, but if you've got a serious problem, you'll want to invest in some harps. They've got built in floss and you can bend them to get way back there. If you run out of toothharps just use a tightly rolled piece of cardboard. Cigarette packs work great.
Den-Temp
This is a really shitty imitation of the temporary filling stuff dentists pack your teeth with after they give you a root canal. It's basically Spackle for your teeth. It tastes like shit and deteriorates after three or four meals, but it's better than nothing and it'll keep the diseases away from your gums if you use it everyday. I've gone through mounds of this stuff over the years. Available in the dental section at most Walgreen's locations.
Listerine
Get the gold-colored industrial strength kind to make sure your rotten teeth don't infect your gums with deadly diseases.
Gum/Mints
The worst thing about having a jacked up grill is that you're always worried that your breath stinks. Mints will keep you smelling fresh. Gum is dangerous because it can dislodge old fillings, but it will also conceal odor and it helps pull leftover food from your cavities. Gross!
If your teeth get too bad to maintain, and you can't afford a trip to Mexico, just invite some friends over, give them some pliers, and sit back in chair like the Russian dude in this video.
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