Smile Stealers : A Prison Dentist Story

As a free woman, I stayed on top of my dental care. I was in jail for about .02 seconds before I realized dental care was going to look different for me now. I brushed three times a day and even fashioned dental floss out of the plastic baggies our sandwiches came in. I was in jail for a year.

In prison, there is an actual dental office. But it isn’t your neighborhood dentist. Not by a long shot.

I had been in prison for five years when I woke up with a very swollen face. It was a tooth, although I wasn’t in any pain. The unit officer, mercifully, got me into dental right away. I had an abscessed tooth. Apparently, I’d had a root canal that failed—so that explained the lack of pain. The dentist gave me antibiotics and scheduled a tooth extraction for the next week.

When the next week rolled around, I was completely better. I still had to go to the appointment, but I told the dentist and the hygienists that I was refusing the extraction. The antibiotics had worked, and I didn’t see the point in pulling the tooth.

Oh, did they get mad.

I’m not sure why the anger. But I flatly refused the procedure. I wasn’t a jerk about it. I wasn’t loud. I simply said, “Teeth aren’t disposable.”

Two years later, I woke up swollen again. Back to dental I went—different dentist, different hygienist. This dentist told me the root canal had failed and the tooth really needed to come out. He told me, compassionately, that even if I were home it would have to be extracted. He also mentioned that the previous dentist had written in my notes that I was not to be given antibiotics if the condition reappeared.

I casually told him I hadn’t gone to dental school, but I was pretty sure antibiotics were kind of the thing you do before an extraction in a case like this—regardless of how angry the last dentist was.

He assured me I would be given antibiotics. And I scheduled the extraction.

It took place the next week. No one likes having a tooth pulled. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that if I were home, I’d have options. And I really didn’t want to lose a tooth—even a back tooth that wasn’t noticeable. Maybe I was being dramatic, but that’s how it felt. The dentist numbed the area and went to work. The tooth didn’t come out easily.

I joked to my friends later that we were like lovers being separated by war. Ridiculous, yes—but it was the closest comparison my brain could grab in the moment. I felt weirdly violated. Defeated. And suddenly… without a tooth.

Two years before I went home, and maybe a year after the tooth was pulled, I broke a tooth—bottom row, not in the very front, but definitely noticeable. It broke in a way where a large displaced piece was floating between the break and the next tooth. I went to dental, and the dentist (again, a different dentist) told me there was nothing he could do. I wasn’t in pain, so he wouldn’t pull it.

I asked if he could remove the floating piece. He said no. I asked if he could at least file the jagged edges. Again, no. It took weeks for the piece to fall out. And I’m not sure if I just got used to the jagged edges, or if they smoothed out over time. It made me wonder if this was retaliation for not getting the tooth pulled years ago.  What was written in my chart? 

Once home, I made an appointment with a dentist I’d never met before. He spoke so kindly to me that I started to cry. I know dentists in the free world are usually really nice—but it had been so long, and I didn’t really trust him at first. Then came the sincerity. The kindness. Maybe he was just very good at chair-side manner, but I cried anyway. I was a wreck. He was the dental equivalent of my knight in shining armor.

I’m sure he’s used to patients being stressed about dental visits, and I didn’t want to trauma dump on him.

Also, he told me the broken tooth could be saved.

It looked so awful I never dreamed it could be saved. But with a root canal and a crown, I got my old smile back.

I don’t want to vilify prison dentists. Prisoners can be disagreeable, to say the least. And when medical professionals start acting hard, it’s usually shaped behavior—too many patients with horrible attitudes, too many threats, too much disrespect, and eventually the staff lose their patience… and sometimes a bit of their humanity. The result is brutal if you’re on the wrong side of the fence.

Today I’m grateful that the State of Michigan only took ten years and one tooth for my crime—because prison has a way of collecting its “payment” in places you never expected.

Thank you for reading