Dentist Knoxville TN

Lucretia Williams was in a terrible situation nearly ten years ago. Living with an abusive husband, she found herself in a choke hold, desperately biting to free herself. She succeeded, and soon thereafter left with her children to start over. But the fight caused serious damage to her bottom teeth, which eventually had to be removed. But thanks to a charitable program designed to help battered women, Lucretia will get her smile back very soon. The Sun Times tells more:

“I’ve been in the bathroom literally pulling up my bottom lip to cover it,” she said. “It’s hard. I’ll be trying to carry on a conversation knowing it can be seen, it is being seen and that they [the teeth] are not there.”

In about two weeks, Williams will hide her smile no longer. Partnered up with a Chicago dentist through a national program called Give Back A Smile, she has received extensive dental work as well as a new partial denture to fill in her missing teeth.

Give Back A Smile started a decade ago through the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry. The program estimates that 827 domestic violence victims have received treatments worth a total of nearly $8 million.

Participants need to be out of the abusive relationship for at least a year, unless their partner is incarcerated. They also need to meet at least once with a counselor, minister or social worker, who signs off on the application.

There is no question dentistry has changed dramatically through the years. Technology has improved it by leaps and bounds. Steve Lundeberg illustrates this point in a recent blog post about his own experiences with dentistry. His colorful  post is both humorous and informative:

Our dentist in those days was a fellow named Elton Storment, and though he was actually a very nice guy, someone once removed the S from the name on his sign, leaving him to be known briefly as Dr. Torment; my sister Debby seemed to find that particularly amusing, so much so that I now wonder if was actually she who modified the sign. Deb, assuming you still read my blog every now and then, what do you have to say for yourself on the subject?

Anyway,  whereas nowadays dentists garb themselves up so much you’d think they were preparing to do brain surgery, back then the only difference, appearance-wise, between our dentist and any grown man in the waiting room was the smock the dentist always wore. There was certainly no mask or eye protection, and I don’t recall him wearing latex gloves.

Another key difference I’ve noticed between 1970s dentistry and now has to do with spitting into a sink; that is, you don’t don’t do it anymore. Instead, there’s that little vacuum cleaner attachment that you’re supposed to close your lips around so it can siphon away all of the debris-laden saliva. I really never have gotten the hang of that; always feel like a part of my mouth is going to end up torn off and hurtling through the tube.

Are you looking for a dentist in Knoxville TN? Call us today for a world-class experience at an affordable price.