Touring reed player from CA

[oboeterry]

Hi all,

My name is Terry and I play oboe, clarinet, sax, and flute. The main reason I'm joining is because I have been having some problems with my lower front teeth and found a couple of discussions here through a Google search. I plan on joining those threads, though they're a bit older, hopefully people will still reply Thanks and cheers!

Terry

 

[kevgermany]

Big welcome from me. Thanks for helping!

 

[SaxoFREAK]

Hey Terry big welcome from me..

 

[Jeanette]

Welcome to the Café, no problem opening old threads

Jx

 

[Justin Chune]

Hello Terry, welcome to the cafe. I hope you find a solution for your teeth problem.

 

[oboeterry]

Thanks you guys! Dave (saxyman; no autocorrect, *not* sexy man, haha!) and I are PMing about it; if others are interested (and if Dave doesn't mind), I'd be happy to make our conversation public. (I don't know how to tag people here...)

Terry

 

[kevgermany]

Tag: @oboeterry just needs the @ sign.

 

[Reed Warbler]

Good luck with your teeth. I have a partial bottom set, front four and a few molars. The night before the four in front were removed I played the saddest blues of my life, believing I wouldn't be able to play again. This was on trombone which presses a bit against the teeth. Seems to me that on sax your bite pushes teeth in deeper. Anyway, was playing again three days later and it wasn't hard to adapt. A dentist told me that if I had implants I wouldn't be able to play for 18 months while they settled in. Added to the huge cost this was enough to push me in the denture direction and no regrets. Had a lively 4 hour gig last night, no worries!
Important to ask how long you might have to stop playing, should you get implants. Maybe things have moved on since I had my £65k estimate many years ago....?

 

[oboeterry]

Good luck with your teeth. I have a partial bottom set, front four and a few molars. The night before the four in front were removed I played the saddest blues of my life, believing I wouldn't be able to play again. This was on trombone which presses a bit against the teeth. Seems to me that on sax your bite pushes teeth in deeper. Anyway, was playing again three days later and it wasn't hard to adapt. A dentist told me that if I had implants I wouldn't be able to play for 18 months while they settled in. Added to the huge cost this was enough to push me in the denture direction and no regrets. Had a lively 4 hour gig last night, no worries!
Important to ask how long you might have to stop playing, should you get implants. Maybe things have moved on since I had my £65k estimate many years ago....?

Thanks for the reply! Yeah, implants aren't an option for me, either financially or physically, as I don't have enough bone mass in the front of my lower jaw, so it would either need to be a denture or a partial bridge (which I'm leaning heavily toward). I have been working with a device that takes most of the weight of the instruments off my right wrist/ hand, and have been trying to slowly lighten up on my grip of the instruments. Hopefully this will prepare me for the eventual bridge. Thanks again.