Having imperfect teeth in Canada is really, really expensive — I should know, I lost 14 of mine in my 20s

Yes, at the age of 20, I lost 14 teeth. Four wisdom teeth — a casual enough procedure on its own — plus 10 milk teeth, which for some reason my body had never bothered to eject.

Just a day before, I’d bitten into a baguette, savouring the crunch, the shards of salt in the butter. I’d smiled without thinking about it. I’d had tiny teeth, but they were there. They were better than nothing.

But as of that bitterly cold afternoon in February 2019, smack-dab in the middle of my third-year reading week, I was doomed to a diet of puddings and pastes. I wouldn’t be able to consume solid food without pain for a while, the doctors said, not until my adult teeth grew in properly. (In retrospect, “a while” was an understatement — it was a few years.)

My mum drove me home from the procedure and all I could do was cry, poking my tongue in the holes where my canines should have been. I winced at the taste of the blood.

A week of recovery came and went. I flew back to school, unsure how I’d navigate the remainder of my theatre degree. I was supposed to be an actor — how would that work, now that I could barely speak? In acting classes, we’d been warned of the dangers of lisps and gappy smiles.

It was no one’s fault, my professors said, but my new impediment was going to be a problem. “You look like Toothless!” one well-meaning prof remarked, referencing the cute cartoon creature from “How to Train Your Dragon.” The statement echoed through the rehearsal hall as I bolted from the room, inconsolable and sore.

This wasn’t going to work. I was staring down the barrel of a half-decade of surgery, braces and Invisalign — I’d already begun meeting with orthodontists to figure out how to wrestle my gaps into something more culturally acceptable, more “pretty.” When I asked about getting braces on the backs of my teeth — an uncommon, expensive means of keeping actors’ teeth bare while undergoing orthodontic treatment — I was all but laughed out of the room. My case was too severe, more than one said. I eventually found an Ottawa orthodontist who agreed to do it. My tongue bled for months, tripping on the wires and brackets.

As the next few months ticked by, my gums screamed at the feeling of anything more substantial than egg bites. I dreaded every acting class. I entered a deep, frightening depression as life threw me new curve balls, including a difficult breakup and the death of my grandfather. Grief became intertwined with physical pain, without even the promise of comfort foods to soothe the aches.

That spring, I sipped truly obscene amounts of chicken noodle soup from Tim Hortons — it was the only thing that helped.

A year after the loss of my teeth, I watched the news in horror: a pandemic was on the way. A few things came to mind.

Theatres were going to close. I wasn’t an actor anymore — I’d abandoned that dream after a lispy train wreck of a performance in suburban Ottawa — but I was becoming a mildly reputable theatre critic. I was obsessed with writing about theatre, watching actors move and listening to them speak. I’d channelled the pain of a lost career into a new one that wasn’t dependent on the size, colour or arrangement of my teeth. As I doom-scrolled through my social media feeds, I braced for another year of closed smiles.

The pandemic meant I’d be unable to go to my biweekly orthodontic appointments, which meant my teeth were going to splay forward, overcorrecting, which would tack on more time to my treatment. Not to mention money.

Having imperfect teeth in Canada is really, really expensive.

The new Canadian dental care plan will help with that, say the Liberals and New Democrats who introduced the plan late last year. Households earning under $90,000 per year will be eligible for discounted dental work and fully covered surgeries and checkups, depending on their income bracket. That will make a real difference for Canadians living with pain in their mouths.

But it doesn’t cover everything.

The Canadian dental care plan notably omits orthodontic care, which can include everything from braces to jaw surgery. (Some orthodontic services, based on medical need and “stringent criteria,” are promised to be added in 2025.)

Braces are expensive — in Canada, they can cost up to $10,000, if not more — and there’s a misconception that their only benefit is the creation of a Hollywood-ready smile. In fact, orthodontics do a whole lot more than improve self-esteem: fixing a patient’s bite can prevent severe decay and hygiene issues over time by creating space between the teeth and realigning them so that molars don’t disproportionately wear down. A few months of corrective orthodontics can open up a lifetime of chewing without fear of pain.

Between 2020 and 2021, I got a lot of work done, including a laser exposure of one of my impacted canines, a procedure I paid for out-of-pocket. (I’ll spare you the specifics, but it hurts, and the procedure reeks of burning flesh. It’s one of my least favourite memories.) At the same time, I was paying around $400 per month for my orthodontic work. A huge chunk of my CERB payments went straight to my teeth.

For some people, braces are a nice-to-have, a cosmetic luxury, a pathway to the straight white teeth that make job interviews, dating, and, well, life, easier. But for people like me, they’re the difference between being able to eat food and not. After living with holes in my mouth for close to five years, I know a thing or two about gaps: the omission of orthodontic care in the Canadian Dental Care Plan sure looks like one to me.

At a recent appointment in midtown Toronto, my dentist told me my teeth were, well, a little weird, but healthy, and unlikely to cause me serious problems any time soon.

It was the best news I’ve ever received about my mouth.

I probably won’t need significant dental surgery again, the dentist said, but if ever I win the lottery, I might be a candidate for veneers or another round of Invisalign.

My teeth aren’t going to appear in any toothpaste commercials. They’re sort of straight, ish, but they’re badly stained, and there are Invisalign attachments on the four at the front. They don’t tolerate hot or cold beverages particularly well.

But they’re all there.

Every time I chew gum, take a bite of steak, or yes, crunch into a fresh loaf of French bread, I remember surviving the heartbreak and recovery of a broken mouth.

And without even thinking about it, I smile.