07/22/2026
Another overdue EDS update! (Then again, is anything really overdue when you’re having surgeries that you need to recover from before you can think straight again?)
This one really “bites.” 🫠
So a few years ago, my dentist asked me what was up with a few of my top teeth becoming a bit loose.
At the time, I just couldn’t understand it. I’d had braces and Invisalign, but that certainly wouldn’t loosen all of my teeth at this age, would it? Could this really be happening on top of all of the other things my body was doing to me?
It wasn’t until she told me I really needed to see a periodontist that I got a little scared. My first perio appointment was with someone who barely even checked out my teeth and told me I would need to have all of my top teeth removed ASAP. I cried and cried and cried, and couldn’t understand what was happening. The second perio injured me pretty badly while cleaning my gums to keep my teeth intact, which is a pretty awful story for another time; third perio said there was nothing he could do about the injuries and basically threw his hands up in the air and said there was nothing he could do for my top teeth.
That’s when I finally started looking into Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome to begin with. A friend & medical professional I see for my joints asked me (a couple years before my teeth started to loosen) if I had ever looked into EDS because I was having so many EDS-like problems with my body coming on all at once. And I needed to figure out why my teeth were starting to get loose. I needed to figure out how in the world to save my top teeth before having the exact same thing happen as happened to my mom, which was to have all of her top teeth pulled out little by little before 60 years old.
No one knew she had EDS, so no one knew how to treat her and she suffered for years with very bad dentures and all sorts of bottom teeth in terrible shape, horrific TMJ, etc. I always felt so bad for her… I wish I had gotten diagnosed with EDS sooner so she could have known what was going on with her body all those years before she passed away. She had so many maladies, it was unreal. (It’s typically genetically passed down from your mother - I also have an unidentified genetic variant of Beals Syndrome!)
I’m 56 and am feeling incredibly lucky right now that I did not listen to those periodontists. Through a referral from my wife’s dental specialist, I found someone in the area who specializes in connective tissue disorders, and is helping me save my teeth using state-of-the-art laser surgery. You see, there are providers out there who specialize in these things, but unless you know you have EDS, you would never know where to turn.
I unfortunately had to have two major teeth removed this week because of the injury I suffered last summer. (I think I might actually sound a hell of a lot better than I did with the incessant whistling noises and buzzing from my incredibly loose tooth & holes punched through my gums from the injury hitting my other teeth…such an unnecessary nightmare.)
The good news? After being told by these perios I could never try implants on my upper teeth, I was told that is absolutely not true - and so my two extractions were immediately prepared with bone grafts for implants, which will happen in about 4 to 6 months. Might take a little more of a specialized approach, but it can happen and I could not be more grateful to hear it.
As some of you know, voiceover is my livelihood we’re talking about now…I need my teeth to be a voice actor. And I need them to stay healthy. At a time when my voiceover career is seriously taking shape after seven years of hard work. And while I won’t be back to 100% for probably 8-10 months now because of the whole process involved, I can finally see some light at the end of a very dark tunnel. I’ll be able to work in between surgical procedures. And hopefully a year from now, I will have my two implants and a full set of teeth again. ❤️
Here are pictures of me after the surgery and of our dog sleeping to the music of Dog TV while I rest.
As anyone who has EDS can tell you, the hits just keep on coming. But I am trying as hard as I can to get ahead of the things that are breaking down so I can continue thriving!
